De­spite height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty af­ter the Pi­paro mud vol­cano erupt­ed yes­ter­day, no res­i­dents were evac­u­at­ed.

Res­i­dents of Bam­boo No 1, Val­sayn, were left hor­ri­fied yes­ter­day morn­ing, af­ter learn­ing that Shaf­fi­na Ho­sein Madoo had been killed by her com­mon-law part­ner.

The Min­istry of De­fence says an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched to de­ter­mine how drone footage was ob­tained of a re­strict­ed area near the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in To­ba­go, where a Unit­ed States–in­stalled mil­i­tary radar is lo­cat­ed.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her Christ­mas mes­sage, has em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of safe­ty, com­pas­sion, and re­flec­tion dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son.

Min­is­ter of Works Jear­lean John has sought to re­as­sure man­u­fac­tur­ers and ex­porters that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) re­mains strong, even as re­gion­al ten­sions es­ca­late fol­low­ing re­cent pub­lic ex­changes among lead­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), which con­firmed the fig­ures via a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest, 122 keys were hand­ed over be­tween April 28 and No­vem­ber 21. The re­port did not in­clude al­lo­ca­tions be­fore April.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing for faith, uni­ty and re­newed hope dur­ing what she has de­scribed as “a sea­son of both re­flec­tion and chal­lenge.”

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has urged cit­i­zens to car­ry the spir­it of Christ­mas in­to their dai­ly lives. She made the com­ment as she re­flect­ed on the en­dur­ing themes of fam­i­ly, com­pas­sion and shared hu­man­i­ty in her Christ­mas Day mes­sage to the na­tion.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen has as­sured res­i­dents that au­thor­i­ties are close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty at the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano and tak­ing mea­sures to safe­guard pub­lic safe­ty.

The Min­istry of De­fence says an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched to de­ter­mine how drone footage was ob­tained of the re­strict­ed area near the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, where the Unit­ed States-in­stalled mil­i­tary radar is lo­cat­ed.

Gov­ern­ment teams have be­gun emer­gency re­sponse ef­forts af­ter re­newed ac­tiv­i­ty at the Pi­paro vol­cano caused road dam­age and tem­porar­i­ly cut off some com­mu­ni­ties.

Fear is sweep­ing through the vil­lage of Pi­paro this morn­ing as the mud vol­cano shows height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty, with loud rum­bling and mud and gas­es spew­ing in­to the air.