Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

On Thurs­day, res­i­dents of Bras­so Seco, Paria, in need of med­ical care, were tend­ed to un­der a tent in the road­way, just feet away from where a land­slide caused the road to col­lapse.

Ac­cord­ing to res­i­dents, the slip­page forced ve­hi­cles to turn back, leav­ing the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty ma­rooned.

Sec­re­tary of the Bras­so Seco Paria Vil­lage Coun­cil, He­len Ram­di­al, said Thurs­day is the on­ly day the Health Cen­tre opens. How­ev­er, res­i­dents were un­able to make it there be­cause of the con­di­tion of the main road­way.

“The health cen­tre would have had to set up just af­ter the pole there to see about tak­ing in the new­born ba­bies and stuff like that, so it was dif­fi­cult,” she said.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ram­di­al re­vealed that be­ing in­con­ve­nienced by the slip­page or oth­er road con­di­tions was not new to res­i­dents. How­ev­er, she said they have grown wary af­ter re­peat­ed­ly plead­ing with past and even the present gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion.

“To­day, be­cause of this and the wa­ter com­ing in the road, they will take it up­on them­selves (res­i­dents), and try to move the wa­ter, to di­vert the wa­ter back in­to the drain. So this is what we have been try­ing, we have been ask­ing, and noth­ing is be­ing done, right? The road is get­ting worse, right?” she ex­claimed.

And while the area has been cor­doned off by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, and ve­hi­cles can now slow­ly dri­ve by, Ram­di­al said the poor roads al­so af­fect­ed res­i­dents’ fi­nances, and they of­ten strug­gle fi­nan­cial­ly to send their chil­dren to school, as the bus has stopped op­er­at­ing in the area.

“Eight years now, there is no trans­porta­tion to take our chil­dren down. It costs each child $100 per day to get out there. We have two chil­dren go­ing to St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary. I have been writ­ing let­ters, I have been call­ing up to yes­ter­day, I was in Min­is­ter Jear­lean John’s of­fice talk­ing to the sec­re­tary there, and I was in­form­ing her of this, and noth­ing is be­ing done,” she said.

Ram­di­al said they spoke with the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ari­ma and Op­po­si­tion Leader, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who, she said, raised their plight in the Low­er House, where a Bai­ley bridge was promised with­in ten days. That was in June. But Ram­di­al said con­struc­tion was yet to start.

“Up un­til this time, no one came to see that road there, and its vil­lagers built back the road to come out,” she said.

With Bras­so Seco known for its eco­tourism and agro­tourism, Vil­lage Coun­cil Vice Pres­i­dent Kris­sy Bastal­do told Guardian Me­dia that the poor roads have al­so af­fect­ed the tourism in­dus­try, which many in the com­mu­ni­ty re­ly on to earn a liv­ing. The slip­page has al­so af­fect­ed the hik­ing tri­als.

“They need to fo­cus on rur­al com­mu­ni­ties more as they fo­cus on com­mu­ni­ties in the city. We see our com­mu­ni­ty as a tourism com­mu­ni­ty; peo­ple al­ways think the north coast is from Mara­cas to Blan­chisseuse. We get a lot of vis­i­tors, and the first thing they say is the road (bad),” she ex­pressed.

Res­i­dents al­so said there was an in­com­plete project that they claimed the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment start­ed af­ter a land­slide in the com­mu­ni­ty in 2024, but halt­ed in Feb­ru­ary and nev­er re­sumed. They ex­plained that a deep trench was dug, with steel pro­trud­ing.

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John said the min­istry knows about two sep­a­rate land­slips on the Blan­chisseuse–Paria–Morne Bleu Road, caused by heavy rain­fall.

She said a per­ma­nent fix for the land­slip at 5.6 km has al­ready been de­signed and will soon go out to ten­der and that’s why work on the pro­posed bai­ley bridge did not com­mence. She added that en­gi­neers will be be­gin in­ves­ti­gat­ing the land­slip at 2.5 km lo­ca­tion, which hap­pened on Thurs­day. The Min­is­ter said soil test­ing would be done to fig­ure out the best per­ma­nent so­lu­tion.

Ques­tions were al­so sent to the MP for the area, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, and Guardian Me­dia is await­ing a re­sponse.