RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hours be­fore the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port com­menced work to clear a mud­slide in Tabaquite yes­ter­day, stu­dents try­ing to get to school had to make a tough de­ci­sion. It was ei­ther they walked through a slushy mud­slide or risked bal­anc­ing across a re­tain­ing wall bor­der­ing a 15-foot precipice to get across the Guaracara Tabaquite Road.

The re­tain­ing wall was used as a pave­ment by school chil­dren and res­i­dents af­ter al­most the en­tire road got buried un­der mud.

How­ev­er, heavy rain­fall ear­li­er this week ex­ac­er­bat­ed the mud­slide lo­cat­ed near the 17 km mark along the road, bring­ing more dis­tress to res­i­dents and com­muters.

Due to the mud­slide, the road has been re­duced to a sin­gle lane for the past nine months. But ear­li­er this week, it be­came fur­ther com­pro­mised, with just a nar­row strip of road vis­i­ble.

On Thurs­day, the fa­ther of twin eight-year-old sis­ters Amelia and Ar­i­ana lift­ed them across the mud­slide, but yes­ter­day their grand­fa­ther, An­tho­ny Gue­vara, guid­ed them as they walked across the re­tain­ing wall to get to their school.

Sev­er­al stu­dents from the Tabaquite Sec­ondary School writ­ing CSEC ex­ams faced the same dilem­ma.

Keyshie Jag­gan was on her way to school in her fa­ther’s car to write her Eng­lish A ex­ams when they en­coun­tered the mud­slide, with a sta­tion wag­on stuck in the mud. Jag­gan said, “It is now like half past eight, ex­ams start nine and now that the road is blocked we can’t pass through, a car block­ing right now. We have to pass through Pi­paro and it longer and we will not make it in time for the ex­ams, so right now we are try­ing to find a way to go to school and get my ex­ams done.”

For­tu­nate­ly, the rel­a­tive of an­oth­er stu­dent was wait­ing in a car on the oth­er side of the mud­slide and of­fered to take Jag­gan and her school­mate to school.

Mo­torist Mervyn Richard­son risked pass­ing through the mud to get to work but got stuck. Af­ter un­suc­cess­ful at­tempts by res­i­dents to push his sta­tion wag­on out, it was suc­cess­ful­ly towed by a pick-up van.

Richard­son’s ve­hi­cle was al­so luck­i­ly not dam­aged dur­ing the tow­ing ac­tiv­i­ty.

While the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port had in­di­cat­ed that work would have com­menced to­day, res­i­dents said the min­istry cleared the mud yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, mak­ing it ac­ces­si­ble to ve­hi­cles once again. Res­i­dents, how­ev­er, are call­ing for a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion, as they fear a re-oc­cur­rence since the rainy sea­son has com­menced.

The min­istry stat­ed on Thurs­day that a so­lu­tion for per­ma­nent slope sta­bil­i­sa­tion works is be­ing de­vel­oped, with an aim to im­ple­ment it be­fore the end of the fis­cal year. The mud­slide was caused by quar­ry­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and wors­ened by a rup­tured wa­ter spring, re­sult­ing in a steady wa­ter flow along the slope.