North Coast road closed off after landslides

The North Coast road was closed off to local traffic for several hours yesterday, after heavy rains caused two landslides. A tree also fell across the road in another area.

The heavy downfall occurred just before noon.

Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan said engineers were on the scene and were attempting to clear the areas. The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management was working with the engineers.

“It should be cleared shortly because based on what I saw it shouldn’t be that difficult. They have it under control,” he said.

Duty meteorologist at the Met Office, Piarco, Paula Wellington said yesterday’s heavy rainfall was due to mixed conditions with thunderstorms occurring in south-west and north west Trinidad.

“At this point in time we have the ITCZ (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone) affecting us and since the ITCZ is a zone of unstable atmospheric conditions usually we would get convective activity, a lot of clouds and showery activity.”

She said more rain was expected today with an increase in cloudiness with showery activity and isolated thunder storms.

“Today there would be partly cloudy to cloudy conditions for most of the day with scattered showers and possible thunder storm activity.”