RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In­un­dat­ed by floods for the sixth time this year yes­ter­day, The Debe Hin­du (SDMS) Pri­ma­ry School was in­un­dat­ed by flood­wa­ters for a sixth time this year on Thurs­day.

The force of the floods, which cas­cade from a near­by riv­er and flow right in­to the main class­room build­ing, had al­ready dam­aged the floors of the school be­fore this lat­est in­ci­dent. Met­al rail­ings and posts which were set up to keep away flood de­bris from en­ter­ing the com­pound, have al­so be­come worn and rot­ted.

Fol­low­ing Thurs­day’s floods in­side the class­rooms, CEPEP crews, as­sist­ed by vil­lagers, be­gan pow­er wash­ing the school from 6 am on Fri­day.

The rains from the night be­fore had sub­sided be­fore mid­day and a source said they were for­tu­nate thick slush had not flowed in­to the com­pound, as had hap­pened ear­li­er this year.

Asked what was caus­ing the floods, a source claimed a land de­vel­op­er had back­filled the area and di­vert­ed the main wa­ter course. Noth­ing was done by the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion de­spite many protests from res­i­dents, the source al­leged.

“This wealthy busi­ness­man has a lot of con­nec­tions and he redi­rect­ed the en­tire riv­er and now there is nowhere for the wa­ter to run, that is why the school is flood­ing every time it rains,” the source said.

To make mat­ters worse, the source claimed the pas­sage­way un­der the new­ly con­struct­ed Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion be­fore the tun­nel wall could not ac­com­mo­date the in­creased wa­ter flow.

Res­i­dent Reena Parghoo said the Min­istry of Works and the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion should work to­geth­er to solve the sit­u­a­tion for the sake of the chil­dren.

“Un­der the high­way, they must in­stall big­ger cul­verts and in­crease ca­pac­i­ty for the wa­ter to cross over. The wa­ter flow be­fore the high­way must be al­lowed to flow un­der the high­way. The land de­vel­op­er should be held to ac­count be­cause peo­ple need to un­der­stand they are af­fect­ing the lives of an en­tire com­mu­ni­ty,” Parghoo said.

Mean­while, checks by Guardian Me­dia re­vealed that the en­tire school floor­ing was crack­ing.

“The floor is let­ting loose and it is not safe for the chil­dren to walk on any­more,” a school of­fi­cial con­firmed.

With wa­ter con­tin­u­ing to un­der­mine the struc­ture, the of­fi­cial said it may on­ly be a mat­ter of time be­fore the en­tire school col­laps­es. The school has about 400 pupils. In the last SEA ex­am­i­na­tion, over 95 per cent of pupils passed for sev­en-year sec­ondary schools.

Con­tact­ed on Fri­day, Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha gen­er­al sec­re­tary Vi­jay Ma­haraj said he had been speak­ing out against the land de­vel­op­er for the past three years, yet none of the au­thor­i­ties ad­dressed the mat­ter.

Ma­haraj said the board was hop­ing to re­lo­cate the school out of the ex­ist­ing area but ques­tioned whether par­ents would be will­ing to send their chil­dren to an­oth­er site. He said he was up­set that the PDRC nev­er took ac­tion against the de­vel­op­er.

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the chil­dren of Debe Hin­du school suf­fered every time it rains.

“We have writ­ten nu­mer­ous let­ters call­ing for the dredg­ing and clear­ing of the riv­er in the vicin­i­ty of Debe Main Road. Pre­cious lit­tle has been done by the au­thor­i­ties. I be­lieve the Min­istry of Works must move post haste to clean and widen the riv­er in that area,” he said.

Mooni­lal al­so said the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion must en­sure land de­vel­op­ers are not al­lowed to block or di­vert wa­ter cours­es.

“This is a fail­ure of the Plan­ning Di­vi­sion and re­lat­ed au­thor­i­ties,” he added.