RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

& IN­NIS FRAN­CIS

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Three months af­ter her neigh­bour’s home col­lapsed, Leslie-Ann Clif­ford and her fam­i­ly es­caped death when the back of her home col­lapsed fol­low­ing heavy rains.

Leslie-Ann Clif­ford, of 238 Lengua Vil­lage, Bar­rack­pore, said she was stand­ing in her liv­ing room when the house start­ed to shake.

“We heard a loud noise with some crack­ing and by the time I looked, there was no kitchen, no wash­room, every­thing was out of sight. It plum­met­ed down in­to the ground,” she re­called.

Clif­ford said the heavy rains had been caus­ing them dis­tress.

“Every time the rain falls there is slip­page. The land is erod­ing every day and it slip­ping rapid­ly,” Clif­ford told Guardian Me­dia.

She ex­plained that sev­er­al re­ports had been made in the past but no help was forth­com­ing.

“Right now, six peo­ple are dis­placed. I don’t know where we will go from here. I asked my daugh­ter to stay by her tonight. All of us are sep­a­rat­ed now,” she said.

Clif­ford said two oth­er hous­es near her were al­so slip­ping.

In May, the en­tire house be­long­ing to her neigh­bour tum­bled.

Ev­i­dence of the ru­in was still vis­i­ble when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene.

Clif­ford said it was on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore her home al­so col­laps­es com­plete­ly.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Philbert Cayenne, said the road start­ed to cave in two years ago.

He said: “I saw the MP for the area once and the coun­cil­lor once. The road cut away in half and the house fell down next door. Right through the back, the road is sink­ing.”

Cayenne lives down­stairs in his house and five ten­ants live up­stairs.

“It is a bad sit­u­a­tion be­cause the drainage is bad. It seep­ing un­der­neath and the wa­ter flow­ing right through there,” he added.

Res­i­dent Phe­no­la Bachan said she too was wor­ried about her home.

Even af­ter do­ing ex­ten­sive work cost­ing over $300,000, Bachan said her home was still in dan­ger.

“The road col­lapsed in Jan­u­ary. It af­fect­ed me bad­ly be­cause the en­tire house is sink­ing. I augered about 21 feet to the side and I did a re­tain­ing wall at 31 feet and it still con­tin­ues. I al­so did new fenc­ing and it just break­ing down now,” Bachan said.

Mean­while, Bronte coun­cil­lor Bri­an Ju­lian said there were four land­slips along Pa­pourie Road.

“We were able to make rep­re­sen­ta­tion to have one fixed but there is still slip­page. We want the Min­istry of Works to help us. There are plen­ty of cave lands in this area and they are af­fect­ing peo­ple’s homes, we need help,” Julien said.

Mean­while, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said yes­ter­day that heavy rains had ex­ac­er­bat­ed many land­slips.

He re­vealed that ar­eas like Moru­ga, Princes Town, Bar­rack­pore and parts of the Na­pari­ma/Ma­yaro Road are prone to land­slips be­cause of the soil type. Sinanan said the min­istry is deal­ing with mul­ti­ple land­slips but be­cause of heavy rain­fall since June, over 64 more land­slips have cropped up in Moru­ga alone.