Au­thor­i­ties are still try­ing to lo­cate the dri­ver or any oc­cu­pants of a ve­hi­cle found aban­doned in flood­wa­ters on Trantrill Road, St Au­gus­tine South, fol­low­ing se­vere flood­ing on Fri­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit re­spond­ed around 10:30 a.m. to a dis­tress call from in­di­vid­u­als trapped while at­tempt­ing to dri­ve through the flood-prone area be­hind the Ca­roni Riv­er. Three ve­hi­cles be­came sub­merged.

Two peo­ple were res­cued by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vices, as­sist­ed by vol­un­teers from Kalpoos Bird Sanc­tu­ary–Ibis Tours and the Tu­na­puna Cor­po­ra­tion. How­ev­er, the third ve­hi­cle was dis­cov­ered emp­ty.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has since cir­cu­lat­ed a ve­hi­cle iden­ti­fi­ca­tion no­tice in an ef­fort to trace the own­er. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the dri­ver or any pas­sen­gers may have es­caped the area and were picked up by some­one else. A full in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way.

As a pre­cau­tion, au­thor­i­ties have cor­doned off Trantrill Road to pre­vent fur­ther ac­cess. The Min­istry urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to avoid flood­ed ar­eas un­der any cir­cum­stances and re­mind­ed them of the life-threat­en­ing risks of en­ter­ing ris­ing wa­ters.

The Min­istry, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly and said all nec­es­sary mea­sures are be­ing tak­en to pre­vent fur­ther in­ci­dents.

Of­fi­cials ex­tend­ed their sin­cere thanks to the first re­spon­ders from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vices, Kalpoos Bird Sanc­tu­ary–Ibis Tours, and the Tu­na­puna Cor­po­ra­tion for their swift, co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse and for risk­ing their own safe­ty to as­sist those in dan­ger.