RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Thieves have start­ed bur­glar­is­ing prop­er­ties along the Man­zanil­la stretch, weeks af­ter the main road through the com­mu­ni­ty col­lapsed fol­low­ing ex­ten­sive rains.

More than 40 homes and guest­hous­es have be­come in­ac­ces­si­ble by the col­lapse of the road.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia over the week­end, a prop­er­ty own­er who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said the thieves have been gain­ing ac­cess to the homes by walk­ing along the beach dur­ing low tide.

Footage pro­vid­ed to Guardian Me­dia showed that the pe­riph­ery walls of sev­er­al hous­es had col­lapsed, along with drains, gaze­bos and ad­join­ing sheds. Elec­tric­i­ty poles col­lapsed when the road was washed away by flood­wa­ters two weeks ago and elec­tri­cal lines, trees and de­bris re­mained on the col­lapsed por­tion of the road­way.

In the video, the shrubs along the road­way had be­come dis­coloured in some ar­eas and the al­mond trees had turned red due to the in­flux of salt wa­ter.

The res­i­dent said while they wait­ed on the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide al­ter­na­tive ac­cess, thieves were hav­ing a field day.

“There are a lot of break-ins. They are steal­ing any­thing they could get. Lights and house­hold valu­ables. Peo­ple can­not ac­cess their homes and it is very hard. We have about 40 to 50 hous­es in this stretch,” he added.

The home­own­er said he tried to ac­cess his home last week but the wa­ter was too high.

“Peo­ple are go­ing through the bro­ken road with ca­noes and dinghies. I tried last week and the wa­ter was too high. The tide is low to­day (yes­ter­day) and I am hop­ing that to­day we can ac­cess it. Right now, there is noth­ing I can do to pro­tect it. I am just try­ing to see what best I can do,” he added.

Say­ing the col­lapse of the road was very dev­as­tat­ing for the whole com­mu­ni­ty, the home­own­er said they were pray­ing that the Gov­ern­ment can pro­vide some re­lief as soon as pos­si­ble.

Ear­li­er this month, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said as soon as the weath­er per­mits, con­struc­tion of by­pass roads will be fa­cil­i­tat­ed to al­low res­i­dents ac­cess to their homes. He said these ac­cess roads will be tem­po­rary un­til a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion is found.

Pro­gramme Di­rec­tor of the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy Unit (PURE) Hay­den Phillip told the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day that there are 16 breach­es on the Man­zanil­la to Ma­yaro Road and that the by­pass­es will al­low the re­sump­tion of ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic on the road.

MP for Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray al­so says over 100 Ma­yaro chil­dren go to school in San­gre Grande. He said their ed­u­ca­tion will be ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed if ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty is not re­stored in time for the new school term next year.

He said busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing su­per­mar­kets, have al­ready re­port­ed a de­cline in their sales be­cause of the col­lapse of the road­way. There is now no ac­cess from the north and Paray said pover­ty will in­crease if the by­pass road is not laid soon.