sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Nine months af­ter a mon­ster land­slip de­stroyed Mandin­go Road, Princes Town, top­pling a three-storey house, the Min­istry of Works has re­stored the road.

For the first time since De­cem­ber, Mandin­go Road was opened to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic yes­ter­day.

But while com­muters were hap­py, res­i­dents who live next to the 60-foot precipice said they were wor­ried that the ex­pan­sive re­pair works will not last as there con­tin­ues to be a seep­age of wa­ter from un­der the gabion bas­kets.

Sham­i­na Mo­hammed said the con­trac­tors piled 28 feet be­fore re­build­ing the road but she said a trench that runs be­neath the road re­mains filled with wa­ter. This run-off has been seep­ing un­der the gabion bas­kets and be­neath the road.

What was worse, Mo­hammed said was that her three-storey home is con­tin­u­ing to crack.

The foun­da­tion of a side porch float­ed as the dirt un­der her foun­da­tion shift­ed away, in­to the precipice which swal­lowed her neigh­bour’s house last year.

Say­ing the land is pulling be­cause of the con­stant wa­ter flow, Mo­hammed said, “I am not sat­is­fied with the works. I think this wa­ter flow will un­der­mine what has been done. They have not found where the wa­ter is com­ing from. They piled 28 feet and re­built the road but this part of our home is sink­ing. Un­der the house, there is no back­fill and un­der the base­ment is con­tin­u­al­ly wet.” 

Shamina Mohammed says her home is still at risk although the landslide at Mandingo Road, Princes Town was fixed.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

She said af­ter her re­tire­ment she spent more than $300,000 to safe­guard her home.

Now that every­thing is crum­bling, Mo­hammed said they had no more mon­ey to spend.

Her sis­ter Shafeena Mo­hammed who lives on the oth­er side of the precipice said while she was hap­py the road had been re­stored in record time, she was still wor­ried for her prop­er­ty.

“I have cracks in my home. I would have to watch how the wa­ter flows when it rains. This is af­fect­ing my sis­ter’s home even more than it is af­fect­ing mine,” she added.

Mean­while, mo­torist Ken­neth Irish said he was pleased that the road was opened. He said mak­ing the rounds was in­con­ve­nient.

“We are just hap­py to have this road opened again and we want to thank the Min­istry for help­ing to fix back the road be­cause this is the main road,” Irish said.

Mandin­go Road had been of­fi­cial­ly closed since De­cem­ber 22. It con­nects to Moru­ga Road at Fifth Com­pa­ny Vil­lage and Cu­mu­to Road in Bar­rack­pore. It al­so con­nects to Lengua Road, Sha­ha­dath Road, and Re­al­ize Road.

Thou­sands of com­muters had been af­fect­ed when the road was de­stroyed. 

Ef­forts to con­tact Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan for com­ment proved fu­tile as calls and What­sapp mes­sages went unan­swered.