RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

It’s the com­mu­ni­ty where for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day was born.

But 22 years af­ter he left of­fice, the res­i­dents of St Julien Vil­lage, in Princes Town, say they are suf­fer­ing.

Since Doo­dooman Sankar, 79, and his wife Ram­daye Sankar, 84, per­ished in a fire, res­i­dents have re­newed their call for the gov­ern­ment to fix land­slips, repave their roads and im­prove their wa­ter sup­ply.

A to­tal of 16 land­slips ex­ists along St Julien Road, which con­nects Dy­ers Vil­lage; Hard­bar­gain, Williamsville and San­cho Road, New Grant to the Na­pari­ma/Ma­yaro Road.

When Guardian Me­dia drove through the com­mu­ni­ty from Buen In­ten­to Road to St Julien Vil­lage, parts of the road had col­lapsed so that mo­torists were en­croach­ing on pri­vate prop­er­ty.

Res­i­dent Sookchan Lal, 80, says he is afraid his home will col­lapse in­to a 15-foot land­slip. The caved land has al­ready top­pled util­i­ty poles and the phone and ca­ble wires are at road lev­el.

“It is a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. It is af­fect­ing us re­al­ly bad­ly. We can­not come out from our gates with our cars be­cause it could go down in the cave land. When ve­hi­cles pass it bounces the edge of the wall of my home. We want the gov­ern­ment to please look at this. This road is dan­ger­ous for trav­ellers,” he said.

Every day Lal search­es for stones to throw down in­to the precipice.

“I worked hard to build my house. For it to fall down now is wor­ri­some,” he said.

Along the road, wa­ter lines lay bro­ken in sev­er­al ar­eas. Even though they pay for wa­ter, res­i­dent Kevin Bharose said the sup­ply was ir­reg­u­lar.

He added, “Be­fore the road gets like this, trucks were pass­ing and sink­ing the road. Then the line burst and it took a week be­fore WASA fixed it. This has been so more than a year. When rain falls, the land pulls and every­thing is cav­ing.”

Pan­day told Guardian Me­dia that he sym­pa­thised with the peo­ple in his child­hood vil­lage but said there was lit­tle he could do to help.

“I feel as ter­ri­ble as I do feel for any­one who suf­fered a tragedy any­where in Trinidad. It’s hap­pen­ing all over the place un­for­tu­nate­ly where roads are not be­ing fixed, peo­ple have no wa­ter,” Pan­day said.

He added that the peo­ple have to bear the bur­den un­til a car­ing gov­ern­ment comes in­to of­fice.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to promi­nent geo­sci­en­tist Xavier Moo­nan to get an idea of why so many land­slips have de­vel­oped in that area.

Moo­nan said, “St Julien Vil­lage sits atop the shale rich Lengua For­ma­tion which is par­tic­u­lar­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to slip­page due to its com­po­si­tion and strength when com­pared to oth­er rock for­ma­tions in Cen­tral and South­ern Trinidad.”

He added, “The roads, build­ings and ever-in­creas­ing move­ment of traf­fic cre­ate an ad­di­tion­al bur­den which trig­gers slip­page in these shales.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said, “We have pro­grammes for fix­ing land­slips through­out T&T. As you are aware, those ar­eas in St Julien Vil­lage from the time of in­cep­tion has se­ri­ous chal­lenges with land move­ment. On a dai­ly ba­sis, you have land­slips be­ing formed. The roads evolved over time, and some of them were built on cliffs at steep an­gles so you will have that move­ment.”

Sinanan said this is a chal­lenge that the min­istry has to deal with, not­ing that the pri­or­i­ty will be to en­sure that the road re­mains pass­able and the land­slip projects are in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the on­go­ing pro­gramme.