Richard Lord

Ram­bachan said ad­di­tion­al sup­port is be­ing sought from the T&T High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don and the Ja­maica Em­bassy in Tokyo. He spoke of the need for T&T na­tion­als to reg­is­ter their de­par­tures with his min­istry in the fu­ture. "What we are say­ing to peo­ple is that when you go to high risk ar­eas you should try and let us know where you are," he added. Ram­bachan said the dis­as­ter "tells us how vul­ner­a­ble we are in the Caribbean. Imag­ine if we have an earth­quake here of that mag­ni­tude, what will hap­pen to us."

But Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er de­scribed the event as "a dev­as­tat­ing dis­as­ter ... I think this one has been re­al­ly ter­ri­ble," she told re­porters at the Com­mit­tee Room in Par­lia­ment. The PM lat­er said she re­ceived a re­port from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Seis­mic Re­search Unit, St Au­gus­tine, which said that "there is no threat for Trinidad and To­ba­go from what hap­pened in the Pa­cif­ic." In­ter­na­tion­al me­dia re­ports say the death toll is ex­pect­ed to rise to over 1,000.