The cries for help from Block J, Em­bac­cadere, San Fer­nan­do res­i­dents over a blocked sew­er line were heard and ad­dressed soon af­ter they reached out to the me­dia.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene last week, the stench per­me­at­ed the en­tire com­pound. Filth and mag­gots flowed over two hand­i­capped park­ing spaces di­rect­ly in front of the three-storey build­ing. The filth bub­bled up from a pipe.

Dis­abled res­i­dent Har­ri­lal Singh, 75, said he could not wheel him­self out­side be­cause of the smell and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

He said the apart­ment block hous­es dozens of fam­i­lies, many with young chil­dren who use the near­by car park to roller-skate, ride their bikes, and play foot­ball.

“We have to stop the chil­dren from com­ing in­to this area be­cause it is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and they could get sick,” he ex­plained.

Singh said the sit­u­a­tion had dragged on for more than two weeks with­out res­o­lu­tion.

“It is ter­ri­ble. I can­not go out. I have to get peo­ple to help me. I can’t bear this any­more. Some­times I have to wheel out and throw dis­in­fec­tant on the whole floor and on my wheel­chair to sani­tise the wheels. It is re­al­ly frus­trat­ing,” he re­vealed.

Singh said re­peat­ed re­ports to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) had not solved the prob­lem.

“HDC is not re­al­ly act­ing when we re­port it. They say it is a WASA prob­lem. We have to tol­er­ate it. We are not sup­posed to be in this mess,” he added.

Singh de­scribed how the over­flow was dis­rupt­ing nor­mal life for res­i­dents.

“You can’t eat any­thing out­side here. You have to be in­side or go to the back door. An­oth­er hand­i­capped woman has trou­ble mov­ing around. In­stead of pass­ing through the ramp, she has to go the oth­er way,” Singh said.

He said this was not the first time the sew­er sys­tem had failed.

“It seems as though the line is choked some­where up the road,” Singh said. “It’s run­ning un­der­neath the build­ing. It’s over­flow­ing here. There are mag­gots. It stinks. We had to stop a child from walk­ing through it be­cause the place is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.”

Mean­while, an­oth­er res­i­dent, Glen Thomas, said the spill was cre­at­ing a health risk for chil­dren.

“Some­times the ball goes in­to the sewage,” Thomas said. “Lit­tle chil­dren could get sick. We need to get this thing fixed and done away with,” he added.

Thomas, who op­er­ates a car wash near­by, said the sew­er­age was al­so af­fect­ing the area where cus­tomers en­ter.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter Padarath said he will li­aise with Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee, un­der whose re­mit the HDC falls.

“Both HDC and WASA can col­lab­o­rate in re­solv­ing the mat­ter,” Padarath said.

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do West MP Dr Michael Dowlath dis­patched a team around 3 pm last Tues­day to pump out the filth and wash down the com­pound.

“The Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, their agency WASA, along with the HDC, have all been no­ti­fied of the sew­er. Pump trucks were sent to the lo­ca­tion to car­ry out clean-up works, which in­clud­ed both the pump­ing and re­moval of sewage from the bro­ken lines be­low the build­ing and a com­plete wash down of any stand­ing spillage,” Dowlath said.

Min­is­ter Lee al­so in­ter­vened and said WASA had suc­cess­ful­ly cleared the block­age on Tues­day, restor­ing nor­mal func­tion to the sew­er sys­tem and bring­ing much-need­ed re­lief to af­fect­ed res­i­dents.

“We un­der­stand the frus­tra­tion of res­i­dents who have felt caught be­tween agen­cies. The liv­ing con­di­tions de­scribed are un­ac­cept­able, and we are com­mit­ted to work­ing with all nec­es­sary part­ners to re­store san­i­tary con­di­tions as soon as pos­si­ble,” Lee said. He not­ed that the HDC will li­aise with se­nior WASA man­agers to en­sure the mat­ter is ful­ly re­solved.