Piparo erupts​​​​​​​: Mud volcano causes major damage

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

De­spite height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty af­ter the Pi­paro mud vol­cano erupt­ed yes­ter­day, no res­i­dents were evac­u­at­ed.

How­ev­er, emer­gency re­spon­ders, State agen­cies, util­i­ty ser­vices and Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives vis­it­ed the site and re­mained on stand­by to as­sist res­i­dents should the sit­u­a­tion wors­en.

Some res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties be­gan crack­ing af­ter the erup­tion, which oc­curred around 9 am, as did a por­tion of the road­way, which was even­tu­al­ly deemed im­pass­able.

But Fi­del Solomon, who lives very close to the site, told Guardian Me­dia the sit­u­a­tion was worse than the ma­jor erup­tion a few years ago, when his home was split.

As a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure, Solomon be­gan pack­ing his be­long­ings, brac­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of evac­u­a­tion.

“It’s like twice as much as last time. The con­crete burst open, the tiles start to crack, the gal­vanise start to raise up, the ground start to open up, the road start to crack up. Right now, the road im­pas­si­ble on one side. Right now, I try­ing to move out my things be­cause our house get­ting the worst dam­age...It run through our house. Ba­si­cal­ly, every­thing col­laps­ing now. T&TEC line burst,” he said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Aarif Dhan­path, re­called that mud was spew­ing about 10 to 15 feet in­to the air and fumes were es­cap­ing from the dome.

Jainanan Ram­sub­hag, who record­ed the first videos of the last ma­jor erup­tion in 1997, said yes­ter­day’s ac­tiv­i­ty was al­so fright­en­ing be­cause he did not know what to ex­pect.

“You just see mud com­ing up with gas and around the area was sink­ing al­so, with cracks all over. The rea­son for record­ing this, al­though it was so scary, is for peo­ple to see how dan­ger­ous a vol­cano could be. It could be qui­et and friend­ly at times and it could be ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous al­so,” Ram­sub­hag said.

Pi­paro/San Pe­dro/Tabaquite coun­cil­lor Hen­ry Awong said res­i­dents were fear­ful not on­ly for their prop­er­ty but al­so for their lives.

How­ev­er, Awong not­ed that there have been mul­ti­ple in­ci­dents over the years and each time pan­ic en­sued be­fore life even­tu­al­ly re­turned to nor­mal. Still, he said he be­lieves there should be a manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tion.

“Every time this thing acts up, is then every­body gets busy et cetera. Peo­ple now start to talk about peo­ple need to re­lo­cate and that is hap­pen­ing for years.”

He added that when they tried to tack­le the mat­ter pre­vi­ous­ly, some res­i­dents were against re­lo­ca­tion.

“When it is act­ing up, they ready to go, af­ter that they don’t want to go and then the agency with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty would ease off as well. I think it is time we have some kind of com­pul­so­ry eval­u­a­tion in terms of mov­ing those peo­ple that are on the hot­line,” he said.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen as­sured that the sit­u­a­tion was be­ing as­sessed and mon­i­tored and that an emer­gency evac­u­a­tion plan is in place should con­di­tions wors­en.

She al­so urged cu­ri­ous mem­bers of the pub­lic who may want to ven­ture to the site to stay away, not­ing that it was dan­ger­ous and that emer­gency evac­u­a­tion routes must re­main clear if need­ed.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the min­istry said ef­forts were un­der­way to safe­guard pub­lic safe­ty and that ini­tial dam­age as­sess­ments were be­ing con­duct­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units from the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, along with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion, and the Fire Ser­vice.

“Re­ports in­di­cate that the vol­cano’s main vent is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty, with vis­i­ble cracks ob­served along the road­way in the west­ern area. This has re­sult­ed in ad­di­tion­al dam­age to one of the ac­cess roads lead­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ty. Agen­cies on site con­tin­ue to sup­port ground as­sess­ments and pub­lic safe­ty op­er­a­tions,” the min­istry said.

As a pre­cau­tion, the min­istry stat­ed that plans were be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to re­strict ac­cess to Pi­paro Road and di­vert ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic through Ho­sei­nee Trace.

In ad­di­tion, the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice unit is ar­rang­ing for traf­fic bar­ri­ers to be de­liv­ered and in­stalled to fa­cil­i­tate the traf­fic man­age­ment plan.

The min­istry said ac­cess to the area can al­so be made via Thomas Ross Road from Princes Town or through Pi­paro Road from Tabaquite.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a back­hoe was de­ployed by the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion to re-es­tab­lish tem­po­rary emer­gency ac­cess for res­i­dents of Pan­choo Trace and Robin­son Road, while as­sess­ments and mit­i­ga­tion works con­tin­ue.

The min­is­ter was quot­ed as say­ing, “The safe­ty and well-be­ing of res­i­dents re­main our high­est pri­or­i­ty. Our dis­as­ter man­age­ment teams and emer­gency ser­vices are on the ground con­duct­ing thor­ough as­sess­ments, and we are main­tain­ing close co­or­di­na­tion with all rel­e­vant agen­cies to en­sure that ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed swift­ly should con­di­tions change.”

The min­istry as­sured that they were col­lab­o­rat­ing close­ly with lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and emer­gency re­sponse agen­cies to eval­u­ate po­ten­tial risks and de­ter­mine any ad­di­tion­al ac­tions re­quired to safe­guard res­i­dents.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Michael Pierre, who was al­so on­site, said they were await­ing guid­ance from the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment, but ad­vised the pub­lic to avoid the west­ern area and not vis­it the vol­cano “to sight­see.”

He said, “The west­ern road­way is im­pas­si­ble but that is be­ing cleared by the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion at this time.”

Mean­while, Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine, who was on the ground with Princes Town MP Dr Aiy­na Ali, said some res­i­dents were hes­i­tant to leave their prop­er­ties. How­ev­er, he not­ed that the Pi­paro Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre is avail­able to pro­vide shel­ter if evac­u­a­tion be­comes nec­es­sary.

Ali said she ar­rived at the site around 2 pm, where re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, the Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre and UMI chem­i­cal en­gi­neers were con­duct­ing as­sess­ments.

The Pi­paro mud vol­cano has a vi­o­lent his­to­ry. On Feb­ru­ary 22, 1997, it erupt­ed, spew­ing mud and de­bris 200 feet in­to the air, cov­er­ing an area of 2.5 square kilo­me­tres. This forced the evac­u­a­tion of over 300 peo­ple. Thir­ty-one fam­i­lies were dis­placed and pets and live­stock were killed dur­ing that in­ci­dent.