(Trinidad Guardian) Jolted out of sleep by a loud cracking sound of her house falling apart, a Princes Town mother and her three children had to flee their home around 2 o’clock yesterday morning.
Meera Brigemohan and her husband Taradath Bridgemohan, a T&T Regiment corporal, spent the rest of the day moving out of their home and into a relative’s house.
They were assisted by his colleagues from the Regiment.
Trying to hold back the tears, Bridgemohan believes a landslide that occurred two years ago is responsible for his home’s destruction.
Other houses are affected and at one other family were also forced to leave their home some time ago. The concrete pillars under the Bridgemohan’s two-story four-bedroom house are shifting and pieces of concrete have been falling off.
“I tell people that I usually often read about this is the newspapers or see it on television but having to experience it today, it is not nice,” lamented Bridgemohan who began building his house in 2008.
He was at work when he received a call from his wife who was crying and scared that the house was collapsing.
Recalling the incident, his wife said, “I hear a loud noise. When I got up I saw the whole wall, the center wall crack, I told my boys come fast, let us go downstairs and see what taking place. When I went downstairs, the post them you just see them start to shatter. I thought it was going to collapse and fall on us. It was very frightening.”
Bridgemohan said in 2018 he applied to the National Commission for Self Help for a grant to help him do repairs but never got it.
Due to the extent of the structural damage to his home, however, he does not believe that it could be repaired.
He appealed to the newly appointed Housing Minister Pennelepe Beckes to assist them with a Housing Development Corporation unit.
He felt heartbroken, however, that his sacrifice to provide a proper home for his wife and children, ages 16, 12 and five, has now fallen on the waste side.
Bridgemohan said in 2018 they contacted the Water and Sewerage Authority and tests were done to determine whether a water leak was causing the land movement, but they have not yet received a response.
Member of Parliament for Moruga/Tableland Michelle Benjamin appealed to the relevant State bodies to provide assistance to the family.
She assured that she would be sending correspondence to the various Government agencies on behalf of the family.
