RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Block R, Em­ba­cadere say they are fac­ing a dire sit­u­a­tion as sewage wa­ter has been over­flow­ing in­to their bath­rooms and around their homes.

Three apart­ments on the ground floor have been af­fect­ed, leav­ing ten­ants frus­trat­ed and des­per­ate for a so­lu­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Priscil­la Wright-Forte, a res­i­dent of Apart­ment 002, de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as un­bear­able.

“This morn­ing I got up, and the bath­room sew­er wa­ter came up. They told me they would send some­one, but noth­ing has been done. I went back in­side, and the wa­ter was all over the bath­room and three bed­rooms. I couldn’t save any­thing on the floor,” Wright-Forte said.

She ex­plained that this is not the first time this has hap­pened.

“It’s the third time. Last time, all my things got de­stroyed, and I nev­er got any com­pen­sa­tion. They promised to vac­u­um it out, but now they’re say­ing it’s the neigh­bour’s fault. I said I am not tak­ing this. It’s enough time now,” she added.

Reynold Joseph, a res­i­dent of Apart­ment 003 in the same build­ing, shared his frus­tra­tion with the on­go­ing prob­lem.

“The sew­er is blocked. They said the lines are cleared, but there’s al­ways a back­up. I even hired some guys to dig a drain to send the wa­ter to the main drain, but it’s been years of this go­ing on,” Joseph said. “I went two weeks ago to com­plain, and up to now, no­body can help me.”

He added: “This is not good. You’re smelling this thing. I went to the doc­tor to­day for an is­sue. When you go out­side, it’s on­ly filth, and when I go to wash the back­yard, I have to stand in it.”

When con­tact­ed, the HDC ac­knowl­edged the sit­u­a­tion and promised to do re­pairs by to­day.

HDC said its team vis­it­ed the Em­ba­cadere De­vel­op­ment to as­sess the ex­tent of work re­quired and de­ter­mined that a “sew­er choke” had oc­curred along the net­work, af­fect­ing one res­i­dent.

The HDC said it de­ployed staff from its San Fer­nan­do of­fice to as­sist with the clean-up and has sought help from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to clear the block­ages.

It said work is ex­pect­ed to be­gin to­day by the au­thor­i­ty. HDC not­ed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed that the choke was caused by a build-up of cook­ing oil and non-flush­able items clog­ging the sew­er net­work.

The HDC al­so not­ed that an il­le­gal struc­ture, con­struct­ed with­out ap­proval, was built on the sew­er line ex­ten­sion, fur­ther con­tribut­ing to the block­age.