Landslide blocks Penal Rock Road between Moruga, Penal

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

Flooding along Penal Rock Road on Friday due to several days of heavy rainfall. Photo by Lincoln Holder

One of many massive landslips along the Penal Rock Road in Moruga has cut off the community, and frustrated residents again protested to highlight the state of the road on Friday.

“The Moruga Main Road is already bad. Now cars cannot go to Penal through the teak (an area further along the Penal Rock Road) from here. It is dangerous for the trucks and other heavy vehicles to pass,” a resident said.

The Penal Rock Road runs from Basse Terre Village, Moruga, to Penal Junction in Penal.

The residents live along the 14 mile-mark in Santa Maria Village.

People gathered near Blas Cha Cha Trace, saying they were left with no choice, as all their cries seemed to fall on deaf ears. They blocked the road with tyes and used appliances.

A major landslip along Penal Rock Road, through the teak fields is now impassable to vehicles. Photo by Lincoln Holder

They recalled that a few weeks ago, a concrete cement mixer truck transporting cement capsized. Luckily no one was injured. The truck was removed by the company it belongs to. But the mixer was still on the roadside when Newsday visited on Friday.

One parent said the Santa Maria RC primary school was closed for a week because the water truck could not supply the school.

Resident and shop owner Mary Guevarro said taxi fares from Basse Terre to Santa Maria increased from $6 to $12 recently.

“No goods vans want to take a chance to come in the area. To buy items, we have to meet them part-way. Cars are damaging by being on the road. In case…someone needs an ambulance, the only way they would be able to reach here is by air,” Guevarro said.

She said a man from a neighbouring community had tried to make the existing “piece of road” workable by putting materials and smoothing them with his backhoe.

Photo by Lincoln Holder

Moruga/Tableland MP Michelle Benjamin met the protesters on Friday. She said the road’s deplorable and dangerous state had been the subject of countless letters to the Works and Transport Ministry and countless parliamentary questions posed to the line minister. Yet the problem is still to be resolved.

Earlier in the week, residents along the Penal Rock Road, in the Penal area, staged several protests calling for the authorities to fix the bad roads.

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