Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Mar­aval Riv­er has burst its banks fol­low­ing heavy thun­der show­ers around mid­day on Tues­day.

Ac­cord­ing to an up­date post­ed to its Face­book page around 1.30 pm, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment said the riv­er was at 98 per cent ca­pac­i­ty and burst its banks.

In an ear­li­er up­date at 1 pm, the min­istry said five ar­eas, main­ly in north­ern Trinidad, that ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing events. These are Ari­api­ta Av­enue and South Quay in the vicin­i­ty of City Gate in Port of Spain, Sad­dle Road, San­ta Cruz ap­proach­ing the old road, Diego Mar­tin High­way in the vicin­i­ty of Sier­ra Leone in­ter­sec­tion, and Scott Street, San Fer­nan­do.

It asked that af­fect­ed peo­ple con­tact their rel­e­vant Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit (DMU) hot­line.

T&T is cur­rent­ly un­der a yel­low-lev­el ad­verse weath­er alert from the Met Of­fice un­til noon on Wednes­day. It went in­to ef­fect at 2 am on Tues­day.

"There con­tin­ues to be a high (70% - 80%) chance of heavy show­ers/thun­der­storms af­fect­ing Trinidad, To­ba­go and sur­round­ing ma­rine ar­eas. These con­di­tions are as­so­ci­at­ed with the pas­sage of an ac­tive trop­i­cal wave in­ter­act­ing with the ITCZ. Con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed to in­ter­mit­tent­ly de­te­ri­o­rate over the pe­ri­od," the Met Of­fice said in a re­lease.

It warned that heavy down­pours can lead to iso­lat­ed flood events that may cause tem­po­rary traf­fic dis­rup­tions and gusty winds may be ex­pe­ri­enced in the vicin­i­ty of heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms. It said seas can al­so be­come ag­i­tat­ed which may ham­per ma­rine ac­tiv­i­ties.