Busi­ness­men op­er­at­ing on Scott Street, San Fer­nan­do, have start­ed count­ing their loss­es as an­oth­er sink hole has ap­peared on the one-way street close to where a sim­i­lar road col­lapse oc­curred on Sep­tem­ber 1. Daniel Plen­ty, Man­ag­er, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), con­firmed the col­lapse was due to the rup­ture of a 24-inch di­am­e­ter sew­er main.?Plen­ty ex­plained that the sew­er main, which was in­stalled sev­er­al decades ago, col­lapsed due to its high state of de­te­ri­o­ra­tion.

He said WASA, along with the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, which con­duct­ed ex­ca­va­tion work of the af­fect­ed area, Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, as well as oth­er state agen­cies, had be­gun emer­gency re­pair work.

In the in­ter­im, the road has been closed off to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic to fa­cil­i­tate re­pair work, which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by Wednes­day. Rudranath In­dars­ingh, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, said his min­istry would en­sure prop­er road re­in­state­ment fol­low­ing the works be­ing car­ried out by WASA.

In a re­lease, WASA said while Scott Street will be closed to through-traf­fic, lo­cal ac­cess will be per­mit­ted up to Vil­lain Street. The re­lease ad­vised mo­torists wish­ing to ac­cess the San Fer­nan­do By-Pass from Cipero Street to do so by pro­ceed­ing north to Don­ald­son Street, east along Don­ald­son Street to David Pitt Street and then south along David Pitt Street to Scott Street and then on­to the San Fer­nan­do By-Pass.

Lo­cal ac­cess to Richard Street will be from Don­ald­son Street and to St Mar­garet Street will be from David Pitt Street on­to Scott Street and then in­to St Mar­garet Street, the au­thor­i­ty fur­ther ad­vised. San Fer­nan­do May­or Dr Navi Mu­radali, who vis­it­ed the sink­hole site on Wednes­day evening, when it was first dis­cov­ered to de­ter­mine the cause, said two-way traf­fic will be al­lowed up to Vil­lain Street.

Dur­ing a site vis­it, yes­ter­day, Plen­ty, along with en­gi­neers from WASA and the SFCC said the pipes, which dates back to the 1960s, will have to be re­placed. "We hope to be­gin an ex­er­cise soon, to re­place to re­place this and sev­er­al oth­er sew­er mains in the area, as part of the San Fer­nan­do East Sew­er Projects, "?Plen­ty said. He said this is sched­uled to start be­fore the end of the year. On Sep­tem­ber 17, ag­ing drainage in­fra­struc­ture al­so caused a sink-hole on the street, which is al­so prone to flood­ing. It was, how­ev­er, re­paired overnight.