Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen has as­sured res­i­dents that au­thor­i­ties are close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty at the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano and tak­ing mea­sures to safe­guard pub­lic safe­ty.

Speak­ing on the sit­u­a­tion, Min­is­ter Ameen said, “The safe­ty and well be­ing of res­i­dents re­main our high­est pri­or­i­ty. Our dis­as­ter man­age­ment teams and emer­gency ser­vices are on the ground con­duct­ing thor­ough as­sess­ments, and we are main­tain­ing close co­or­di­na­tion with all rel­e­vant agen­cies to en­sure that ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed swift­ly should con­di­tions change.”

She con­firmed that ini­tial dam­age as­sess­ments are be­ing con­duct­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units from the Cou­va Tabaquite Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, along­side the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice.

Re­ports in­di­cate that the vol­cano’s main vent is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty, with cracks ob­served along a west­ern road­way and ad­di­tion­al dam­age to one of the ac­cess roads in­to the com­mu­ni­ty. To main­tain pub­lic safe­ty, au­thor­i­ties are im­ple­ment­ing traf­fic re­stric­tions on Pi­paro Road and di­vert­ing ve­hi­cles through Ho­sei­nee Trace. A back­hoe has been de­ployed to re es­tab­lish tem­po­rary emer­gency ac­cess for res­i­dents of Pan­choo Trace and Robin­son Road while as­sess­ments and mit­i­ga­tion works con­tin­ue.

Min­is­ter Ameen em­pha­sised that no evac­u­a­tions have been or­dered and no emer­gency shel­ters have been ac­ti­vat­ed. She urged res­i­dents and mo­torists to ex­er­cise cau­tion when ap­proach­ing the area and to fol­low in­struc­tions from of­fi­cials on site.

The Min­istry con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and work with lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and emer­gency re­sponse agen­cies to as­sess po­ten­tial risks and take any ad­di­tion­al nec­es­sary ac­tion.