RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Heavy rains are caus­ing fur­ther slip­pages along Williams Smith Road, Man­ta­cool, Table­land where the road and sev­er­al hous­es have al­ready col­lapsed. 

Three oth­er hous­es are in dan­ger as the land­slip con­tin­ues to sink fur­ther, pulling down trees, con­crete struc­tures, elec­tric­i­ty poles and dis­rupt­ing wa­ter­lines. 

Frus­trat­ed with a lack of re­sponse by the au­thor­i­ties, res­i­dents pooled $17,000 last month and did re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive work them­selves, al­low­ing nar­row ac­cess along the col­lapsed Williams Smith Road. 

But this has not been enough as the May show­ers caused deep cracks along the pas­sage­way. 

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty on Wednes­day morn­ing, res­i­dents were in dis­tress. Rus­sell Lookhoor, whose home is lean­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly in­to the precipice, re­fused to come out of his house. 

“He doesn’t think this makes sense. We protest­ed sev­er­al times this year and they did noth­ing to the road. Peo­ple don’t have much hope,” his neigh­bour Rekha Har­ba­jan said. 

Her home, a two-sto­ry con­crete struc­ture, is al­so in dan­ger of col­lapse and Harb­ha­jan said they have al­ready spent ex­or­bi­tant sums try­ing to save the house. 

“My home is break­ing down. The land un­der­neath is com­ing down, walls are break­ing off and the land is pulling to the right. We are fac­ing re­al dan­ger here. It is fright­en­ing in the night es­pe­cial­ly when rain falls, be­cause we nev­er know what can hap­pen,” she said. 

Stan­ley Ram­nath and his wife Bas­daye, an­oth­er cou­ple re­sid­ing in the area, lost their en­tire two-sto­ry house due to the land­slip last Au­gust. The cou­ple and eight oth­er mem­bers of their fam­i­ly have since moved out.

The el­der­ly mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty ex­pressed their con­cerns, par­tic­u­lar­ly about emer­gency ve­hi­cles be­ing un­able to en­ter the area.

De­vak­i­nan­dan Seep­aul, a 75-year-old res­i­dent said: “I’m a sick­ly per­son, and I am wor­ried that if some­thing hap­pens to me in­side here, no am­bu­lance can come in. I will have to re­main home there and dead.”

When con­tact­ed, Moru­ga/Table­land Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Michelle Ben­jamin high­light­ed the res­i­dents’ sense of ne­glect and the lack of gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance. She claimed de­spite writ­ing over 10 let­ters to Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, no aid has been pro­vid­ed to the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies.

Ef­forts to con­tact Sinanan were un­suc­cess­ful, with calls and mes­sages go­ing unan­swered. How­ev­er, a source at the min­istry said the project had been put out for ten­der and that re­pairs would be ini­ti­at­ed once funds be­came avail­able.