Piparo Volcano road repair works to begin Monday

Wa­ter trucks have been en­ter­ing the Pi­paro area to sup­ply truck-borne wa­ter to res­i­dents liv­ing near the new­ly ac­tive mud vol­cano, as State agen­cies con­tin­ue to re­spond to the lat­est episode of vol­canic ac­tiv­i­ty that dis­rupt­ed the com­mu­ni­ty on Christ­mas Eve.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, res­i­dent Nabi­hah Solomon said pipe-borne wa­ter was cut off af­ter sev­er­al WASA lines were dam­aged when the vol­cano be­gan emit­ting mud around 9 am on Wednes­day.

“All the WASA lines burst, and we had no wa­ter, but we are thank­ful that they sent wa­ter for us in trucks,” Solomon said.

She said res­i­dents were al­so grate­ful for the Christ­mas Day vis­it from Works Min­is­ter Jear­lene John, who con­firmed that road re­pair works will be­gin on Mon­day.

“We are very hap­py that the min­is­ter vis­it­ed us very ear­ly on Christ­mas Day, and she said from Mon­day they will be fix­ing the road,” Solomon said.

She said the hiss­ing of gas­es and mud from the vol­cano prompt­ed some res­i­dents to leave their homes tem­porar­i­ly. Solomon said that al­though ground move­ment is still be­ing ob­served, con­di­tions have eased enough for some fam­i­lies to re­turn.

“We were not com­fort­able since Christ­mas Eve, when the vol­cano start­ed to spit out mud. We had some set­tling move­ments on the ground to­day and yes­ter­day. Af­ter every­thing, the land start­ed to set­tle,” she said.

Solomon’s home suf­fered dam­age dur­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty. She said a back an­nex de­tached com­plete­ly from the main struc­ture and shift­ed sev­er­al feet away, forc­ing elec­tric­i­ty to be dis­con­nect­ed and re­sult­ing in a bro­ken wa­ter line. Pow­er was lat­er re­stored, but she said her fam­i­ly re­mains pre­pared to leave at short no­tice if con­di­tions change.

On near­by Pan­choo Road, oth­er res­i­dents al­so re­port­ed a re­duc­tion in vol­canic sounds. Some said that while the qui­eter con­di­tions brought a sense of re­lief, they re­mained alert and cau­tious.

Teams from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Ge­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety and a group of geo­sci­en­tists, in­clud­ing Xavier Moo­nan, have been mon­i­tor­ing the site since ac­tiv­i­ty re­sumed. Of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to as­sess ground con­di­tions, road dam­age, and the sta­bil­i­ty of sur­round­ing prop­er­ties.

The Pi­paro mud vol­cano has a long his­to­ry of ac­tiv­i­ty, with its most sig­nif­i­cant erup­tion oc­cur­ring on Feb­ru­ary 22, 1997. That erup­tion sent mud and de­bris ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 feet in­to the air and cov­ered an es­ti­mat­ed 2.5 square kilo­me­tres. More than 300 res­i­dents were evac­u­at­ed at the time, 31 fam­i­lies were dis­placed, and sev­er­al pets and live­stock were killed.

Since then, the vol­cano has shown pe­ri­od­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, though res­i­dents said events of Christ­mas Eve were among the most dis­rup­tive in re­cent years.

Chair­man of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gowrie Roop­nar­ine, urged res­i­dents to re­main cau­tious and fol­low of­fi­cial guid­ance, while emer­gency agen­cies con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing and pro­vid­ing sup­port.

He said a shel­ter has al­ready been set up.