Shas­tri Boodan

River­bank squat­ters are con­tribut­ing heav­i­ly to flood­ing in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, ac­cord­ing to Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) chair­man Derek La Guerre.

La Guerre made the com­ment as he and oth­er cor­po­ra­tioin of­fi­cials toured flood­ed ar­eas in parts of St He­le­na and El Car­men yes­ter­day.

La Guerre said un­planned de­vel­op­ment has been cre­at­ing hav­oc when it comes to flood­ing.

He said, “We have in­ad­e­quate drainage and there is a pop­u­la­tion ex­plo­sion in parts of the coun­try.

“The ex­ist­ing drainage in­fra­struc­ture needs to be up­grad­ed. The Min­istry of Works has em­barked on an ex­ten­sive pro­gramme a month ago to widen wa­ter­cours­es. Sad­ly, per­sons oc­cu­py­ing the river­banks are chas­ing out crews when they come to do drainage works.”

He added, As re­cent­ly as Sun­day morn­ing in the San Rafael area, the res­i­dents blocked the crew with the ex­ca­va­tor and chased them out. Peo­ple want to oc­cu­py lands on the riv­er banks and when the rivers can­not be cleaned flood­ing takes place. When peo­ple go to live on the riv­er banks, they cre­ate ad­di­tion­al prob­lems for the au­thor­i­ties, we have to move in and res­cue them.”

La Guerre said the cor­po­ra­tion is equipped with four dinghies and trained staff to res­cue peo­ple who are trapped in flood­ed hous­es.

He said the cor­po­ra­tion will be do­ing as­sess­ments and seek­ing to as­sist all flood vic­tims in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

Samuel Sankar, the lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for St He­le­na/War­renville, said ex­ca­va­tor op­er­a­tors were chased from the War­renville area when they went to clean a wa­ter­course on Mon­day.

He said, “We have been try­ing to do pre­ven­ta­tive work but per­sons who oc­cu­py the lands around the wa­ter­cours­es are do­ing their best to keep work­ers out be­cause they want to take the land re­serves. Look at what is hap­pen­ing to­day, floods, and it’s the peo­ple who have to suf­fer. We have to work to­geth­er to bring aware­ness so we can re­duce flood­ing.”

Sankar said the cor­po­ra­tion will send in clean-up crews and are in touch with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to bring re­lief.

Mean­while, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said yes­ter­day that low-ly­ing ar­eas could not have es­caped flood­ing from the re­cent rains. He said the vol­ume of rain dur­ing the 24-hour pe­ri­od was just too much, adding it caused basins in low-ly­ing ar­eas to over­flow.

Sinanan said this pat­tern of heavy rain is show­ing up across the globe in sev­er­al coun­tries, in­clud­ing Chi­na and In­dia.

In cen­tral Trinidad, the Las Lo­mas/St He­le­na area was heav­i­ly hit.

Ca­roni East MP Dr Rishad Seecha­ran said he will be work­ing through­out the week­end to bring re­lief to the hun­dreds who were left strand­ed by the flood. Seecha­ran said on Tues­day, his of­fice will start the dis­tri­b­u­tion of ham­pers.