Sascha Wil­son

A fam­i­ly has to evac­u­ate their home and six oth­ers may suf­fer a sim­i­lar fate if the au­thor­i­ties do not move swift­ly to re­pair a ma­jor land­slip at LP 16 Lengua Road, In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga.

Heavy rain­fall on the week­end re­sult­ed in more de­struc­tion to their prop­er­ties with a porch at the home of Dar­i­an Singh split­ting in two.

A wall at an­oth­er prop­er­ty is on the verge of col­laps­ing while large cracks have ap­peared in the res­i­dents’ pro­pri­eties due to the con­tin­u­ous land move­ment.

“On Sat­ur­day night we had heavy rain­fall and on Sun­day morn­ing the place start­ed to slip re­al bad, the en­tire wall cave away, the house start­ed to move re­al bad. The porch it broke in­to two, re­al dev­as­ta­tion,” said Robin Singh.

The landslide along the Lengua Road Indian Walk, Moruga which has become impassable.

RISHI RAGOONATH

They have been ap­peal­ing to the gov­ern­ment to fix the land­slip for the past four years. They protest­ed in 2017 and again about three months ago. How­ev­er, their cries have fall­en on deaf ears. He said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and then Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Moru­ga Dr Lovell Fran­cis vis­it­ed in Jan­u­ary and promised to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion, but no help came. Since then, he said the de­struc­tion has wors­ened. The road be­came im­pass­able to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic months ago. Singh said the land­slip oc­curred four years ago due to a leak­ing WASA line.

“Yes­ter­day the WASA line burst again for the umpteenth time. We had to re­pair that for our­selves.”

He said in 2017 his neigh­bour lost his en­tire house and was not even com­pen­sat­ed.

“Watch the dev­as­ta­tion here and no one seems to care. The road is im­pass­able,” he lament­ed. The res­i­dents com­plained that they have to watch help­less­ly as their homes are de­stroyed and their pleads for help go unan­swered.

“It is heart­break­ing to lose your prop­er­ty, to lose your house in this hard times where you get­ting ah work to get mon­ey to build back a house. I don’t know where to go now.”

Anwar Baksh,left, from the ODPM with MP for Moruga Tableland Michelle Benjamin and resident Robbin Singh look at the landslide along the Lengua Road Indian Walk Moruga.

RISHI RAGOOONATH

He said on Mon­day he con­tact­ed the Works and Trans­port Min­istry and was told that they sent an es­ti­ma­tion for a re­tain­ing wall at a cost of $3 mil­lion to the min­istry in Feb­ru­ary. Singh was told that the doc­u­ment was for­ward­ed to PURE and then NID­CO.

Moru­ga/Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin vis­it­ed the res­i­dents and al­so called on the gov­ern­ment to ini­ti­ate ur­gent work. “This fam­i­ly is on the verge of los­ing their home. If you look di­rect­ly op­po­site from this prop­er­ty a house would have fall­en. We don’t want it to be a case where an­oth­er house is fall­en and the peo­ple have to go and rent a room. Some­thing has to be done.”

Re­call­ing that in 2017, $178 mil­lion was gift­ed to Moru­ga/Table­land, she said some of that mon­ey should be used to help the res­i­dents. Dur­ing her maid­en bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment, she said she raised this mat­ter, as well as land­slips at Loney, Sa­ha­dat, and Pooran Road, but she has re­ceived no cor­re­spon­dence.

Residents cross the landslide along the Lengua Road Indian Walk, Moruga, on Tuesday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

“Every­thing be­ing said is that they have to pri­ori­tise. Yes, we un­der­stand that COVID is here and we have to spend with cau­tion but at the same time we have to save peo­ple’s lives and prop­er­ty.” She said the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment re­spond­ed to a video of a sit­u­a­tion she post­ed on so­cial me­dia and as­sessed the dam­age yes­ter­day. She said they rec­om­mend­ed that one of the fam­i­lies evac­u­ate be­cause their home is not safe. Guardian reached out to Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan and WASA for com­ment but got no re­sponse up to press time.