Energy Minister Stuart Young yesterday announced that representatives from multinational companies will be part of the independent team investigating last Friday’s mishap at Berth 6, Pointe-a-Pierre in which four divers remain missing.
Only one of the group of five on that dive to conduct what was described as routine work survived.
The tragedy has evoked a range of emotions with many accusing Paria officials of negligence and some calling for a criminal investigation into the mishap. Many questions are swirling around about the cause of the accident and whether Paria officials made enough of an effort to rescue the men.
Hours after the incident, Candy Boodram said she was told by her husband, sole survivor Christopher Boodram that “they got sucked into a pipe and it was really hard for them to get out.”
He and another diver decided to swim out of the tank “in all this slush and water to get to the top.” Christopher gave up a few times “but through God, he reached the top,” she said.
It will be up to experts to determine what went awry and provide answers to the families of the missing divers. They are already enduring considerable pain because so little information and care has been provided by Paria officials.
The finding from investigations into this tragedy should be shared with the families of the divers before being released to the wider community is told.
The energy company did them a disservice on Sunday evening when they announced at a news conference that they were moving from rescue to recovery mission and were hoping to flush out the bodies. At that point, the grieving families had not even been given the courtesy of meeting to give an update on the incident
For the loved ones of these divers, who are traumatised, hoping and praying that their loved ones were alive, Paria’s actions were heartless.
The company said counselling for these families is available. Whether they are in the frame at this time to accept that counselling is another issue.
The jury is out on the length of time the Paria rescue mission would have taken and why some action was not taken sooner to rescue the men left stuck in the pipeline.
Late yesterday after days of hoping for the best, their worse nightmare became a reality when the families of three of the men got confirmation that their bodies had been recovered from the undersea pipeline.
It is critical now more than ever that the independent investigation gets started soon and that the truth behind what went wrong last Friday comes to the surface. If people are to be held accountable, so be it. But there must be no cover-up.
The investigators must also provide recommendations as to how to prevent an incident like this from ever happening again.
It cannot be business as usual, and Energy Minister Stuart Young must ensure that no stone is left unturned to get the truth and bring relief to the families.
