While Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed Pa­pourie Road, Bar­rack­pore, as a drain, many res­i­dents say it is much worse.

Res­i­dents called it a po­ten­tial death trap, which sees them nav­i­gat­ing pre­car­i­ous land­slips and crum­bling as­phalt.

A vi­tal link be­tween San Fer­nan­do and Moru­ga, the 15-kilo­me­tre road runs from SS Erin Road in Phillip­ine to Lengua Vil­lage. It is a painstak­ing dri­ve that not on­ly jars the bod­ies of mo­torists and com­muters, but al­so leaves ve­hi­cles dam­aged—the sound of un­der­car­riages scrap­ing against the tat­tered sur­face has be­come all too fa­mil­iar.

Dur­ing the most re­cent post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the state of Pa­pourie Road. She re­count­ed at­tend­ing a meet­ing in Moru­ga, where she asked what road she was on and was told it was Pa­pourie Road.

“Moru­ga... Miss Jear­lean John, you have plen­ty of work to do for Moru­ga and Ma­yaro. The oth­er night I at­tend­ed a meet­ing in Moru­ga, and I asked ‘Which road is this, please?’ and they said ‘Pa­pourie Road’. I said, ‘But this is not a road, it is a drain,’” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

A Guardian Me­dia team drove the length of the road and en­coun­tered nu­mer­ous haz­ards — patched sec­tions that cre­at­ed bumps, in­suf­fi­cient warn­ing signs, and over 15 mi­nor and ma­jor land­slips. While some re­cent paving was ob­served, it was on­ly in short seg­ments. The Min­istry of Works built re­tain­ing walls in places, but the land ad­ja­cent to these is slip­ping again.

The ru­ins of homes that crum­bled due to land move­ment re­main ev­i­dent, no­tably op­po­site the Bar­rack­pore Union Pres­by­ter­ian Church and along As­si­ah Trace. One house, near­ly com­plet­ed, was aban­doned af­ter its stair­case col­lapsed. De­spite the dan­gers, the road is used dai­ly, with a po­lice sta­tion, sev­er­al schools, busi­ness­es, and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties along it.

Af­ter nav­i­gat­ing a se­vere land­slip near Raza­ck Ali Av­enue, Bar­rack­pore res­i­dent Fa­reed Nobbee re­spond­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ment: “It’s worse than a drain.”

In Feb­ru­ary, Lengua res­i­dents and taxi dri­vers protest­ed over this same slip­page, which has al­ready claimed two homes and now threat­ens to sev­er the road en­tire­ly and dam­age more hous­es. Still, no sta­bil­i­sa­tion work has be­gun, and the rainy sea­son looms.

Nobbee said car main­te­nance has be­come a con­stant and cost­ly con­cern.

“You see the con­di­tion of the road. It takes a toll on your ve­hi­cle. For years it has been like this.”

An­oth­er dan­ger­ous seg­ment known as Trinidad Hill has be­come treach­er­ous, with lanes now at dif­fer­ent heights due to con­stant land move­ment.

Rasheed Mo­hammed, an­oth­er frus­trat­ed res­i­dent, claimed that re­pairs thus far have been in­ad­e­quate.

“Very bad, and I think this is too long gone. The con­trac­tor who did the pre­vi­ous work was a waste of time. He knows noth­ing about build­ing roads. If they don’t put a prop­er re­tain­ing wall from the top down, the road will keep col­laps­ing.”

Busi­ness­man Bran­don Ram­sumair, who trav­els through Bar­rack­pore from La Ro­main to col­lect ma­te­ri­als, al­so voiced con­cern.

“The road is bad. We need a change. The whole of Bar­rack­pore, most­ly, be­cause, look at the con­di­tion. A man could go down there and die.”

At School Hill, 78-year-old Rooplal Ju­goon, sit­ting at his dou­bles stand, showed the home he re­built af­ter a land­slip de­stroyed the orig­i­nal. A re­tain­ing wall was lat­er con­struct­ed, but he said large sec­tions of Pa­pourie Road re­main in dis­re­pair.

“Re­al pot­holes, re­al break­age – and every­thing else wrong,” he said.

He added that the road has rapid­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over the last eight years, and patch­ing dur­ing the rainy sea­son is fu­tile. Wa­ter main breaks due to land move­ment have caused col­laps­es in the past and wa­ter short­ages. But he re­mained hope­ful for long-term fix­es.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Works Jear­lean John said many roads have suf­fered ne­glect over the past decade and are now re­ceiv­ing her min­istry’s at­ten­tion. She added that the ac­com­pa­ny­ing in­fra­struc­ture, like drainage and util­i­ties, al­so needs ur­gent work.

John said the min­istry will soon host a press brief­ing to out­line its rainy sea­son ob­jec­tives and the roads tar­get­ed for in­ter­ven­tion.