The Diego Martin Regional Corporation is awaiting a report from its engineering department to determine whether or not victims now housed in shelters can rebuild their homes, damaged by recent floods and landslides.
The corporation’s chairman, Anthony Sammy, told Newsday that the Engineering Department has been mandated to conduct a Disaster Emergency and Needs Assessment (DENA) of the areas where landslides toppled several homes and damaged others making them uninhabitable. He expects the report to be ready by next week.
The report along with assessments conducted by the Ministry of the People and Social Development, he said, will determine whether the victims will be able to return to the area, and what assistance could be provided.
Over 80 persons are still in shelters, including many children and two differently-abled persons. More than 100 had been accommodated in the shelters. A small number has returned to their homes, and 11 have been given keys to Housing Development Corporation apartments in Oropune, Piarco.
Sammy was aware that some persons want to return to their communities because they think they could effect repairs to their damaged homes. The National Self Help Commission and the government, he said, will not dispense with grants if the engineering department recommends that the area is under threat.
“We don’t want to give grants to persons who will go back and rebuild homes in the areas that will experience similar disasters in future,” he said.
Asked how long the corporation will be able to keep the victims at the three shelters set up to accommodate the victims from La Seiva, Cocorite and from other parts of Diego Martin, Sammy said he has written to the relevant government ministries to advise on an exit strategy.
The regional corporation, he said, is mandated to establish shelters within the first 48 hours in disasters. After that, he said, the Ministry of the People and other government agencies would take over.
“I have written to them to let us meet,” he said. In the meantime, he said that the regional corporation is doing its best to keep the people comfortable in the shelters set up in three community centres. The Belle Vue community centre housed a kindergarden school, but the school was closed temporarily because of the shelter.
A lot of recreational and other social activities take place at the community centres, especially during the Christmas season.
