All it took was a landslide to trigger the partial collapse of a Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) tower and lines at Grant Trace, Rousillac, leaving thousands of customers in the dark for several hours on Tuesday night.
Most of the focus since then has been on the vulnerability in the power grid that was exposed, as the incident caused a loss of power from Trinidad Generation Unlimited (TGU), the largest power generation plant in Trinidad, and affected 30 per cent of T&TEC’s customers.
But there is a bigger picture to be considered—the increasing number of incidents caused by landslides, soil erosion and other similar incidents that have caused severe damage to homes and public infrastructure.
In recent weeks, fiery protests have been staged in several parts of south Trinidad over dilapidated roads, cave-ins and erosion that are threatening to cut off some communities from the rest of the country and are causing many residents to live in fear of losing their homes. The Ministry of Works and Transport (MOWT) is struggling to keep up with calls for urgent interventions and remedial measures to prevent major disasters.
Incidents are becoming more frequent but are not isolated or new.
Last year, heavy rainfall following the passage of Tropical Storm Grace caused a total of 15 landslides across the country. The final tally from the Office of Disaster Preparedness (ODPM) was ten landslides in several parts of northwest Trinidad, including Belmont, St Ann’s, Morvant, San Juan, Malick, Santa Cruz and Petit Bourg.
A hill collapsed onto a roadway in Buenos Ayres, south Trinidad, cutting off the road between Erin and Point Fortin and incidents were reported in other parts of the country.
That incident was weather related but there were other incidents caused by other factors. Climate change is believed to have been the cause when eight homes were destroyed by a massive land slippage in Bamboo Village, Cedros, in 2018.
Human activity in the form of quarrying is being blamed for the destruction of several homes in Belle View, Claxton Bay. That activity is believed to have caused landslides which have affected at least six homes since September last year.
Of particular concern is the extent of the destruction that has occurred although this country, safely located outside the hurricane belt, has been spared direct hits from major storms and other natural disasters.
However, there is a perfect storm that has taken direct aim at T&T, a combination of weather conditions, climate change and decades of unauthorised land developments, inflicting severe consequences. The response to all these hazardous events cannot be the reactionary approach that seems to have been adopted by the MOWT in recent times.
While the authorities have long acknowledged the problem of coastal erosion and there has been a programme in place to address that situation for several years, land erosion and slippages are no longer limited to those parts of the country.
There is now an urgent need to expand the mandate of the MOWT’s Comprehensive National Coastal Monitoring Programme (CNCMP) to cover all incidents of erosion and landslides and produce environmentally and economically sustainable solutions.
This threat to homes, infrastructure and lives cannot be treated lightly.