RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Just as they feared, vil­lagers of St Julien Road in Princes Town are now cut off af­ter the main road slipped in­to a 30-feet precipice, fol­low­ing heavy rains.

Two hous­es are perched on a cliff on ei­ther side of the slip­page and a WASA main has bro­ken off.

De­spite heavy rains, dozens of vil­lagers came out to protest on Mon­day to beg for help.

Faced with no ve­hic­u­lar ac­cess, res­i­dents were seen walk­ing on the edge of a slope to get out of the vil­lage where for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day was born and raised.

Res­i­dent Sheila Chan­door, who has been liv­ing there for 45 years, said el­der­ly peo­ple were so frus­trat­ed to the point of sui­cide.

"Bread van can't pass, fish van can't pass, the am­bu­lance can­not come in. What will hap­pen if one of us gets sick? " Chan­door cried.

She said the recre­ation ground where they usu­al­ly ex­er­cised is now in­ac­ces­si­ble and they could no longer walk to the vil­lage tem­ple or church.

"If we want to get out, we have to make the whole rounds about eight miles through Sis­ters Road to get out," Chan­door ex­plained.

Villagers stage protests after the community was cut off by a landslip which claimed the entire roadway. (Image by KRISTIAN DE SILVA)

Prin­ci­pal of Bas­deo Pan­day Preschool Nadera Ar­joon said when school opens next week, there will be chaos.

"Chil­dren are now cut off from this point. We have been protest­ing since last year and we had no help from the gov­ern­ment. No main­te­nance on this road. We have more than 15 land­slips here. Low­er down St Julien there is an­oth­er caved-in land and if that falls too, we will not be able to use the oth­er side to get out of the vil­lage," she said.

Ar­joon ex­plained that sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in­clud­ing Up­per Julien Vil­lage, Sis­ters Road, San­cho Road, and Hard­bar­gain are all af­fect­ed.

She said St Julien Pres­by­ter­ian School and Hard­bar­gain RC School stu­dents will not be able to get to school if the land­slip was not fixed.

Res­i­dent Jer­ry Singh said fam­i­lies were break­ing up be­cause of the stress.

"Peo­ple fight­ing, chil­dren cry­ing, wives want things and hus­bands frus­trat­ed be­cause their cars break­ing up on the bad road," he added.

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan had said in an ear­li­er in­ter­view that St Julien Road was lo­cat­ed on shift­ing lands. He said re­pairs can on­ly be done based on the avail­abil­i­ty of funds.