Shas­tri Boodan

Res­i­dents of Mamoral, Bras­so, Flana­gin Town and Tabaquite say they are at risk of be­ing cut off from oth­er com­mu­ni­ties un­less ur­gent ac­tion is un­der­tak­en to fix a land­slip at the Mamoral Cross­ing on the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road.

Vil­lager Ram­lal Jaikaran, 61, who lives near the land­slide, said the road start­ed col­laps­ing a month ago be­cause of heavy rain­fall.

Jaikaran said the Min­istry of Works start­ed patch­ing up the de­pres­sion but it kept col­laps­ing.

He said 35 years ago, work was done to the road foot­ing that had al­so col­lapsed be­cause of the in­ces­sant rains. He said on Fri­day, the min­istry at­tempt­ed to patch the road with as­phalt. How­ev­er, the road col­lapsed again.

Jaikaran said the road­way was the blocked off. How­ev­er, some mo­torists who did not want to make the one-hour de­tour through Gran Cou­va, moved the cau­tion tape and at­tempt­ed to pass de­spite the dan­ger.

Con­tact­ed on the prob­lem, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Hen­ry Awong said the road is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­istry of Works.

Awong said a sim­ple patch job would not do, adding the area need­ed a re­tain­ing wall sup­port­ed by deep piles.

Al­so con­tact­ed, MP for the area, Fos­ter Cum­mings, told Guardian Me­dia that he has been call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties for as­sis­tance.

Cum­mings said, “This ur­gent mat­ter has been raised with the Min­istry of Works and they are tak­ing steps to bring about re­lief to the trav­el­ling pub­lic af­fect­ed by this sit­u­a­tion.”

Mo­torists said the road through Gran Cou­va is the worst.

One taxi dri­ver said “We will have to charge com­muters more if we have to go through Gran Cou­va. The road­way there is the worst. There are land­slides on that road and it was prob­a­bly paved about 50 years ago. As an al­ter­nate route, it was nev­er main­tained and a num­ber of heavy trucks pass­ing through there have mashed up the road even more.”

As of 3 pm yes­ter­day, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan had not re­spond­ed to mes­sages sent to his phone.