CHARLES KONG SOO

charles.kong­soo@guardian.co.tt

As an ac­tive low-lev­el trough pass­es west­ward over the coun­try, sev­er­al ar­eas in T&T ex­pe­ri­enced flash flood­ing and land­slides yes­ter­day.

Some of the af­fect­ed ar­eas were Port-of-Spain, Mar­aval, Biche, Or­toire, Man­zanil­la, San­ta Cruz, St Joseph, Mara­cas, San Fer­nan­do, Matelot, Ma­yaro, and San­gre Grande.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed res­i­dents in Quar­ry Dri­ve, Champs Fleurs, where the road was blocked by a land­slide caused by the heavy rains and Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #1, Val­sayn, where homes and farm­ers' fields were in dan­ger of be­ing flood­ed by the over­flow­ing Ca­roni riv­er.

A trac­tor and truck from the San Juan-Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit were in Champs Fleurs in the morn­ing help­ing to clear the road of the de­bris.

Res­i­dent Kelvin Bap­tiste, 70, said the land­slide took down the con­crete plat­form of his yard on­to the road­way. "When peo­ple were sleep­ing in the morn­ing, I was bat­tling with this since yes­ter­day morn­ing. The next half of my yard came down around 2 am. My wife and I were dream­ing it would hap­pen. They are sup­posed to put a box drain above our house as there are hous­es be­hind ours and the cor­po­ra­tion should look in­to in­stalling re­ten­tion walls," he said.

Re­tiree Da­van Cassie said when he woke up in the morn­ing he saw that the road was blocked with de­bris from the land­slide caused by the ex­ces­sive rain.

He said the land­slide was the most se­vere res­i­dents had ex­pe­ri­enced in a long time; the cor­po­ra­tion worked on small­er land­slips be­fore but not on this scale.

Quarry Drive resident Kelvin Baptiste points to the landslide that is threatening his home after heavy rain yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

MP Paray: Your per­son­al prop­er­ty, life and limb take pri­or­i­ty

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray said his en­tire con­stituen­cy had been trau­ma­tised by the overnight rains. Hun­dreds of res­i­dents were af­fect­ed for the third time this month by flood­wa­ters that have made the road­way im­pass­able. Paray urged his con­stituents to con­sid­er their safe­ty first.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Paray said, "It's about pre­serv­ing life and limb, take all the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions in terms of pro­tect­ing your prop­er­ty, and your­self in your homes.

"Do not tra­verse ar­eas where we're re­port­ing flood­wa­ters, mud­slides and land­slides. Stay home for the next 24-48 hours, mon­i­tor weath­er re­ports, and if you can reach the su­per­mar­ket get a lit­tle bit of food­stuff.

"We can't tell how much wa­ter is go­ing to be dumped in the area if the rain con­tin­ues. But self-preser­va­tion, your per­son­al prop­er­ty, life and limb take pri­or­i­ty right now for the next 48 hours."

An Or­ange Grove Es­tate toma­to and sweet pep­per farmer said that there was a crack in the near­by sluice gate which was an on­go­ing is­sue for the last month. He said not on­ly was rain­wa­ter ac­cu­mu­lat­ing in the es­tate, but al­so wa­ter from the Ca­roni riv­er pours through the crack in the sluice gate and floods the farm­ers' fields.

Quarry Drive resident Devan Kassie explains how the landslide affected him yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

The farm­ers rec­om­mend­ed plac­ing a pump by the sluice gate.

Agri­cul­ture Con­sul­tant Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture Con­sul­tan­cy Ser­vices Riyadh Mo­hammed said one rea­son for the peren­ni­al flood­ing was there was no prop­er drainage to han­dle the vol­ume and in­ten­si­ty of wa­ter.

He said prop­er drainage, pumps and per­son­nel to man them, re­ten­tion ponds and dams were so­lu­tions.

Mo­hammed said that flood­ing will dri­ve the price of lo­cal­ly pro­duced food up and some im­port­ed foods like toma­toes and cau­li­flower will be cheap­er if the flood­ing prob­lem is not han­dled prop­er­ly.

Ganesh­dath Khoon Khoon, of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #1 Val­sayn, said with the in­clement weath­er, there was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the en­tire vil­lage be­ing flood­ed out. While there was prop­er­ty loss, he was hop­ing that there was no loss of life.

He said the San Juan riv­er bank on the west­ern side of Bam­boo #1 over­flowed its bank in at least five points and the wa­ter lev­el in­un­dat­ed the vil­lage with al­most a foot of wa­ter.