RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Pi­paro are be­ing urged to stay away from the crater of the Pi­paro mud vol­cano, which re­mains high­ly ac­tive and dan­ger­ous, ac­cord­ing to a new re­port from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

The re­port, is­sued yes­ter­day (De­cem­ber 28), not­ed that even ar­eas that ap­pear calm or qui­et can pose se­ri­ous risks due to un­der­ground pres­sur­ized mud and gas sys­tems.

The re­port, com­piled by Kerneese Ram­jar­rie, Pro­fes­sor Os­haine Blake, Dr Lor­raine Sobers, Dr Kailas Baner­jee, Dr Dex­ter Davis and Dr Ryan Ram­sook, de­tails the height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty on De­cem­ber 24, 2025.

The main crater col­lapsed then, re­leas­ing gas with strong methane odours, while frac­tures rang­ing from one inch to one me­ter were ob­served to the north, west, and south­west of the main vent, it not­ed. Dam­age to roads, hous­es, elec­tric­i­ty poles, wa­ter lines, and drains was al­so doc­u­ment­ed.

The UWI team ex­plains that the pres­surised mud and gas sys­tems are mov­ing un­der­ground to­ward the north­west, caus­ing up­lift, sink­ing, and crack­ing at the sur­face. The da­ta show that even ar­eas with­out vis­i­ble erup­tions are at risk, as pres­sure can build and re­lease sud­den­ly, dam­ag­ing in­fra­struc­ture far from the main crater.

The re­port re­vealed that mon­i­tor­ing wells re­vealed sharp fluc­tu­a­tions in pres­sure, in­di­cat­ing in­tense frac­tur­ing and con­tin­ued risk of sur­face de­for­ma­tion.

The team urged res­i­dents to stay alert and to avoid the crater and high­ly frac­tured ar­eas, re­port any new cracks or gas emis­sions, and fol­low all guid­ance from lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and emer­gency ser­vices.

The re­port al­so rec­om­mends ex­tend­ing the area of mon­i­tor­ing to 400 acres. Calls for ur­gent fund­ing to im­prove ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems and risk as­sess­ments for com­mu­ni­ties near the vol­cano were al­so made.

The UWI team al­so not­ed that Pi­paro is one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most ac­tive mud vol­ca­noes, and the risk to near­by com­mu­ni­ties re­mains high.

The Pi­paro mud vol­cano last ex­pe­ri­enced a ma­jor erup­tion on Feb­ru­ary 22, 1997, when mud and de­bris were eject­ed near­ly 200 feet in­to the air, cov­er­ing about 2.5 square kilo­me­tres.

More than 300 res­i­dents were evac­u­at­ed at the time, 31 fam­i­lies were dis­placed, and pets and live­stock were killed.

Since then, the vol­cano has shown pe­ri­od­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, with res­i­dents de­scrib­ing the Christ­mas Eve episode as among the most dis­rup­tive in re­cent years.

Chair­man of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gowrie Roop­nar­ine, has urged res­i­dents to re­main cau­tious and fol­low of­fi­cial guid­ance, not­ing that a shel­ter has been set up while mon­i­tor­ing con­tin­ues.

Princes Town MP Dr Aiy­na Ali told Guardian Me­dia that truck-borne wa­ter sup­plies were dis­trib­uted to af­fect­ed res­i­dents over the long week­end. She not­ed that road­works will be­gin to­day.