Minister promises help for residents at risk from Piparo volcano

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein has as­sured res­i­dents of Pi­paro that the Gov­ern­ment stands ready to pro­vide as­sis­tance should re­lo­ca­tion be­come nec­es­sary due to on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ty at the mud vol­cano in the area.

Speak­ing to the me­dia fol­low­ing the launch of the Bed­side Birth Reg­is­tra­tion Ini­tia­tive at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Ho­sein de­scribed the mud vol­cano’s ac­tiv­i­ty as con­cern­ing but said no for­mal re­lo­ca­tion plans have been dis­cussed and no re­quests for re­lo­ca­tion have been re­ceived from res­i­dents.

“Once we have made a de­ci­sion as a gov­ern­ment based on the sci­en­tif­ic as­sess­ment—be­cause the key pri­or­i­ty is the safe­ty of the res­i­dents—we will act,” Ho­sein said. “If there is a need for re­lo­ca­tion, I will en­sure that my min­istry is mo­bi­lized to see whether we have avail­able lands where peo­ple can build.”

He not­ed that im­me­di­ate re­lo­ca­tion would not be pos­si­ble, as it re­quires new con­struc­tion, but added that the Min­istry of Hous­ing could pro­vide short-term re­lief.

“I have un­der my purview with LSA some hous­ing re­sources, so if we can pro­vide im­me­di­ate re­lief to those res­i­dents, I am giv­ing the un­der­tak­ing that we will mo­bi­lize re­sources and do so,” Ho­sein said.

Res­i­dents re­port­ed that on Christ­mas Eve the mud vol­cano be­gan spew­ing mud and re­leas­ing fumes, with large cracks form­ing around the site, in­clud­ing on their prop­er­ties. A sec­tion of the road­way re­mains im­pass­able, though the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture has con­duct­ed restora­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion work to al­low lim­it­ed ac­cess. The vol­cano con­tin­ues to be ac­tive.