radhica.sookraj@guardian.co.tt
Hours after Tuesday’s terror earthquake rocked T&T, over 25 families from Mora Heights in Rio Claro spent the night outside after parts of their homes crumbled. Their children slept in cars while the adults stayed outside praying that there would be no more aftershocks.
When the Guardian Media visited the development yesterday, pensioner Starlin Baldeosingh could not get out of his home after the main staircase near his bedroom crumbled. His caretaker Ansa Khan braved the rubble to carry food for him but when the Housing Development Corporation team arrived they warned him that the stairway was structurally unsafe.
Khan said Baldeosingh was too heavy to carry down the broken stairway, so they planned to leave him there until a proper passageway could be built.
“I know it is unsafe but we cannot do anything about it now. We can just hope for the best,” Khan said.
Resident Kion Scipio said he was afraid to stay in his house.
“When the earthquake was happening I grabbed my daughter and my wife and we started to go downstairs. That was when the stairway started to fall,” Scipio said.
Saying they narrowly escaped injury, Scipio said he was afraid to go back into the house. He called on the HDC to provide emergency housing for all of the affected families.
Bhimdath Ramnath, who was seen walking under his son’s home, said it appeared that the houses were not sturdy.
“My son is paying almost $400,000 for this house and look at the damage,” he said.
Michael Degrilla and his wife Reeta Mohammed said they were alarmed when their home started to rock from side to side.
“Everything started falling down and all we thought to do was to get out of the house. It was the worse experience of my life,” Mohammed said.
Ellina Rooplal-Mahabir said after the earthquake all of the affected residents gathered outside on a nearby plot.
“We started here all night waiting for help. We did not feel safe going back inside,” Rooplal-Mahabir said.
At the crack of dawn, HDC personnel from several departments visited the residents taking photos of the damage and doing assessments.
HDC project manager Kevin Showers said out of the 140 homes in the development, 65 per cent of them sustained some sort of structural damage. About 25 homes were badly damaged and out of these two were inaccessible because of fallen stairways, columns and walls.
“Those with tall columns and staircases were worst affected. In some areas the top and bottom of the columns were affected,” Showers said.
Mc Donald said 12 houses had significant structural issues.
“There are some people who have difficulty in accessing their homes because both staircases collapsed. We will do an assessment as some of the cases are critical,” Mc Donald said.
Mayaro MP Rushton Paray commended HDC for its quick response, saying he had the assurance that all homeowners, whether they owned, leased or rented HDC homes, will get assistance. He said the corporation had limited resources and while a community centre could be opened up for displaced residents, there were inadequate resources to man the centres.