The owners of a $4 million property in Princes Town which was severely damaged by a landslide will not be compensated by the Ministry of Works. This was according to Works Minister, Dr Surujrattan Rambachan, who spoke to the T&T Guardian last week. Rambachan said he had requested an emergency report on the landslip at Iere Village Branch Road. He promised repair works, estimated at $25 million, would begin soon.
“I will have my people go out again this week and have a look at the situation. This is a very expensive project, it is expected to cost almost $25 million,” he said. “We cannot provide compensation to the affected families, but we can try to see what we can do to assist them.”
When asked whether his ministry had funds to undertake such a project, Rambachan said, “When there is a situation like this, the ministry cannot leave all those residents to be so distressed. We will have to find the money somehow to get it done.” He declined to comment on the residents’ claims that the issue had been neglected for the past two years. Rambachan said yesterday engineers were doing soil testing in the area, but no other work had begun.
But Kamla Sahadath, the owner of the house, disputed Rambachan’s version of events, saying the minister was only trying to save face. Her home is being pushed away by the landslide which she says was caused by a leaking WASA pipeline. “They are not coming to fix any road. It’s been over two years now we have been complaining and now he wants to say they coming to fix it?” she asked.
“He just said that to look good on the paper. He knew about this from the beginning; they have visited us numerous times.” The four-storey, concrete structure has shifted almost 20 feet from where it was built and dropped about 10 feet below road level, causing the worried mother of three to wonder where her family would live now.
She said she and her husband, school teacher Darwin Sahadath, took loans to complete their home, which they had to finish paying even though they were watching their dream house collapse. “We have to find a place to rent now, we have nowhere else to go,” said Sahadath. “We are still paying off a credit union loan we took to complete the house a few years ago. Everything we work for just going down the drain.”
She said they began constructing the house nine years ago and have only lived in it for the past four years.
More homes threatened
The Guardian visited the area on Monday and spoke to several residents who said the landslips had gone from bad to worse. More than half of the roadway is eroded and drivers who are brave enough to use it have to inch along, as one bad move could send them careening down a steep incline created by the landslips and straight into the already unstable home of the Sahadath family.
Another home, located opposite the landslip, is also being threatened and one of its owners, who gave her name only as Naffisha, said her family was fearful for their lives. “Our house already has multiple cracks; the yard has also cracked up. It is in a mess and we are frightened for our lives and our home,” she said. Naffisha said the slippage prevented her family from driving one of their vehicles out of the yard, as the car was too low and got stuck every time.
Taxi drivers cry out
Several taxi drivers also spoke to the Guardian, saying they did not know how much longer their vehicles could withstand the road conditions or how much longer there would be a road for them to drive on. “This road licking up my car, I fed up change parts already,” said one, who asked to be identified only as Mikey. “One hard rain again and it would not have a road again.”
Another, who uses the road to ply the Princes Town/Williamsville route, said while fares were increased weeks ago from $4 to $5, passengers might soon have to face another increase. “It costing us more to drive here than we making,” he said.