CARISA LEE

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

A fam­i­ly of four re­mained stuck in­side their Belle Vue, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James, home for the third straight day yes­ter­day af­ter a land­slide blocked the en­trance and ex­it to their house.

“I saw that the whole land next door slipped and it came over on my side,” home­own­er Rosan­na Clarke said.

Clarke said her chil­dren missed end-of-term ex­ams at school yes­ter­day be­cause of the land­slide. How­ev­er, she was thank­ful she had enough food sup­plies to take them through the or­deal.

“It re­al­ly hard hav­ing three young chil­dren and we just home,” Clarke shared.

She said the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough’s Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit (DMU) vis­it­ed and said they would get back to her.

“Well, with the heavy rain­fall, it was wet, so it wouldn’t be able to move ... But I saw to­day (Mon­day) the sun came out a lit­tle bit so, hope­ful­ly, be­fore the week done, we could get some­one to as­sist,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia was told that tech­ni­cians from the DMU will vis­it Clarke’s premis­es to­day and as­sess the land­slide.

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (RDLG) said ef­forts were on­go­ing to re­move a land­slip at Rudolph Trace, ac­cessed via Dun­don­ald Hill, to re­con­nect iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, RDLG added that clean-up op­er­a­tions af­ter the se­vere weath­er con­di­tions caused by the re­cent low-lev­el trough were ac­tive­ly un­der­way in ar­eas such as Sad­dle Road, Mar­aval, La Sei­va Road, and sur­round­ing streets. It said work­ers had re­moved fall­en trees in School Street, Pe­tit Val­ley, Rudolph Trace, Belle Vue, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, Crys­tal Stream, Mt St Cather­ine, and St James.

Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi said the min­istry al­so de­ployed ad­di­tion­al equip­ment and teams to Crys­tal Stream, Sier­ra Leone Road, and Kavi Cres­cent to in­ten­si­fy clean-up ef­forts.

But one res­i­dent of Chu­ma Mon­ka Av­enue, Pe­tit Val­ley, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said as of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon no of­fi­cial had vis­it­ed the area.

She said res­i­dents had lost their ve­hi­cles and per­son­al be­long­ings.

The woman claimed just be­fore 3 pm yes­ter­day she vis­it­ed the DMU to ask when the wa­ter trucks would ar­rive to help with clean-up ef­forts. She claimed work­ers said they, too, were wait­ing for the trucks. She de­scribed the re­sponse as un­ac­cept­able.

Res­i­dents of Care­nage claimed they, too, were yet to see any of­fi­cial since Sat­ur­day’s in­ci­dent.

“No­body ain’t come, no­body,” one res­i­dent said.

Those who lived close to the main road were still dis­pos­ing of their dam­aged fur­ni­ture and re­mov­ing silt from their prop­er­ties.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to get a re­sponse to the res­i­dents’ claims but the coun­cil­lor for Ch­aguara­mas/Point Cumana Kevon Williams di­rect­ed all ques­tions to the Diego Mar­tin May­or Ake­li­ah Glas­gow-Warn­er, who did not an­swer calls.

Res­i­dent Robert Phillip said heavy ve­hi­cles dri­ving along the main road dur­ing the flood made their sit­u­a­tion worse.

“Some­thing passed in the road and a gush of wa­ter flood up in­side here ... it was a mess, it was a whole mess,” he said.

Phillip said he was able to save his tools and ap­pli­ances. How­ev­er, some of his fur­ni­ture was still soaked.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who asked not to be named, said the wa­ter dam­aged her ap­pli­ances.