RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Just as they feared, vil­lagers of St Julien Road in Princes Town are now cut off af­ter the main road slipped in­to a 30-foot precipice, fol­low­ing heavy rains over the week­end.

Two hous­es are now perched on a cliff on ei­ther side of the slip­page and a WASA main has bro­ken off.

Be­fore mid­day yes­ter­day, dozens of vil­lagers came out in the pour­ing rain to beg for help.

With school re­open­ing just a week away, the vil­lagers say they are wor­ried about their chil­dren’s fu­ture, not­ing that their en­tire vil­lage is falling apart be­cause of so­cial and eco­nom­ic prob­lems

Res­i­dent Sheila Chan­door, who has been liv­ing there for 45 years, claimed el­der­ly peo­ple were frus­trat­ed.

“Bread van can’t pass, fish van can’t pass, the am­bu­lance can­not come in. What will hap­pen if one of us gets sick?” Chan­door cried.

She said the recre­ation ground where they usu­al­ly ex­er­cise is now in­ac­ces­si­ble, and they can no longer walk to the vil­lage tem­ple or church.

“If we want to get out, we have to make the whole rounds about eight miles through Sis­ters Road to get out,” Chan­door ex­plained.

Faced with no ve­hic­u­lar ac­cess, res­i­dents now brave the edge of a slope to get out of the vil­lage, where for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day was born and raised.

Mean­while, Bas­deo Pan­day Preschool prin­ci­pal Nadera Ar­joon, said when school opens next week there will be chaos.

“Chil­dren are now cut off from this point. We have been protest­ing since last year and we had no help from the Gov­ern­ment. No main­te­nance on this road. We have more than 15 land­slips here. Low­er down St Julien, there is an­oth­er cave land and if that falls too, we will not be able to use the oth­er side to get out of the vil­lage,” she said.

Ar­joon ex­plained that sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing Up­per Julien Vil­lage, Sis­ters Road, San­cho Road and Hard­bar­gain, are all af­fect­ed.

“St Julien Pres­by­ter­ian School and Hard­bar­gain RC School stu­dents will not be able to get to school if this land­slip is not fixed,” Ar­joon added.

Res­i­dent Jer­ry Singh said fam­i­lies were un­der se­vere stress due to the sit­u­a­tion.

“I am very up­set. The vil­lagers are frus­trat­ed and some be­com­ing sui­ci­dal. Fam­i­ly fights, peo­ple quar­relling, peo­ple fight­ing, chil­dren cry­ing, wives want things and hus­bands be­ing frus­trat­ed be­cause their cars break­ing up on the bad road. Grand­par­ents get­ting sick and no am­bu­lance to take them to the hos­pi­tal,” he added.

He called on the Min­istry of Works to pro­vide ev­i­dence that the com­mu­ni­ty was built on shift­ing lands.

“He wouldn’t tell the peo­ple that the Min­istry of Works main­te­nance crew on­ly has one per­son, no ma­te­r­i­al. There is no drain, no out­let, so wa­ter is pool­ing all over the road, cre­at­ing cracks, mov­ing the WASA line and caus­ing holes and then de­pres­sion in the road. The min­istry does not do pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance and that is why the road falling down,” he said.

Call­ing on Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to have a heart, Singh said there are about 15 land­slips along St Julien Road alone that need­ed at­ten­tion.

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan has said in an ear­li­er in­ter­view that St Julien Road was lo­cat­ed on shift­ing lands. How­ev­er, he said re­pairs can on­ly be done based on the avail­abil­i­ty of funds.