Sascha Wil­son

Julie Ramkissoon-De­onar­ine and her daugh­ter are now liv­ing in fear that a mud­slide will de­stroy their home.

“My biggest fear right now is if I sleep­ing and this house fall down. It is go­ing to be re­al­ly heart­break­ing for me. While I was work­ing, I worked re­al­ly hard to make a lil com­fort for my­self and my child and it is go­ing to be re­al­ly dif­fi­cult to lose every­thing I work for,” lament­ed Ramkissoon-De­onar­ine dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

She said on Oc­to­ber 6, the mud start­ed tum­bling down at the back of her house, de­stroy­ing her out­door wash­room and toi­let and it is now jam­ming against the area of the front door of her home at La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do.

While her front door is block­ing the mud from tum­bling in­to her home, she does not know for how long the door will hold. When it rains, she us­es cloth to ab­sorb the wa­ter that seeps through the cracks to en­sure her home is not flood­ed.

“The door is closed right now but the mud is push­ing the door and mud­dy wa­ter is run­ning in­to the house by the fridge and stove. If I don’t block it, it will flood the whole area wa­ter and mud,” she lament­ed.

Ramkissoon-De­onar­ine and her daugh­ter An­nisa De­onar­ine, 28, have been vis­it­ing var­i­ous agen­cies try­ing to get help.

“I have been back and forth from MP of­fice, Bor­ough, ODPM and is no help. I have spo­ken to the en­gi­neer, Mr Mo­hammed, and he is telling me that if he come and move this mud, it is go­ing to come down crash­ing more but if they had come when the mud was just by the toi­let and bath area, it would not have been so bad as of now. Now it’s push­ing the house. I would not like my house to fall down be­cause I mean to say come on every­body need a lil com­fort.”

Ramkissoon-De­onar­ine, 43, claimed she spoke to and sent pho­tos to San Fer­nan­do West MP and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi.

How­ev­er, she claims she has re­ceived no re­sponse.

A for­mer se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, Ramkissoon-De­onar­ine said her health is­sues, in­clud­ing di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and re­nal com­pli­ca­tions, have made it dif­fi­cult for her to work and if her home is com­pro­mised, she and her daugh­ter will have no place to go.

“They telling me they can’t move the mud. If they move the mud it is go­ing to come crash­ing down more or the house is go­ing to fall, but as it is now the mud is push­ing the house, the house is go­ing to fall. I don’t want it to reach that lev­el. If the house fall I have nowhere to go, is not like I could go by any­body,” she lament­ed.

Her home over­looks the Gulf of Paria and in the ear­ly stages of the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front Re­de­vel­op­ment Project, she said she and her sib­lings, who live near­by, were told they would be re­lo­cat­ed.

But, no one has spo­ken to her re­cent­ly about be­ing re­lo­cat­ed.

“If I get the re­lo­ca­tion, I will take it prompt­ly and go, is not a prob­lem with me be­cause as it is, it makes no sense to build back some­thing, and as it is now, the mud­slide could cause my house to fall any­time now.”

Claim­ing that in the past 41 years she has lived there they nev­er had this is­sue, she said she be­lieves the mud is cav­ing down be­cause of the near­by con­struc­tion of a mul­ti-sto­ry pub­lic car park.

“This mud­slide start­ed when they start­ed this car park at the bot­tom of by the hos­pi­tal area. When they start­ed this car park and touch the hill, this hap­pen,” she said.

She said her fa­ther’s home is al­so at risk, as the mud is al­so tum­bling down at the back of his house. Since her toi­let and bath­room were de­stroyed, De­onar­ine-Ramkissoon said she and her daugh­ter have been us­ing their rel­a­tives’ fa­cil­i­ties.

“You does hear the move­ments. It gives a noise when the mud moves it moves more when the rain falling you hear the move­ments. You would hear it go like a crack or crick it is a lot of mud, plen­ty mud,” she said.

Con­trac­tor Vicky Lal­be­har­ry, of Lal­be­har­ry Con­struc­tion and Ex­ca­va­tion Works, who was asked by the fam­i­ly to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion, told Guardian Me­dia it would be risky to re­move the dirt.

“There is a risk in mov­ing the mud. If you move the mud right now it will be more riski­er for the whole hill to come down...If we move it right now and it come down, it might take the whole house.”

But Lal­be­har­ry said it was just a mat­ter of time be­fore the mud de­stroys the house. He not­ed that an­oth­er op­tion is con­struct­ing a re­tain­ing wall and a rub­ble drain, but it would cost be­tween $200,000 and $300,000.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ude­CoTT, the project man­ag­er for the car park, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tion man­ag­er Rox­anne Sta­ple­ton said the com­pa­ny will in­ves­ti­gate and take the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion.