La Seiva Road to be restored in a month

Residents of Upper La Seiva Road, Maraval can look forward to having a proper pedestrian walkway in place by Friday evening after the road collapsed over the weekend. However, the road itself will not be ready for vehicles for at least a month.

The road, which residents said had been gradually slipping for years, collapsed on Sunday after a WASA main burst while the Ministry of Works and Transport was doing excavation to build a retaining wall.

Project engineer Yuwiyl LeGendre Scott of the Programme for Upgrading Roads Efficiency (PURE) Unit of the ministry said the existing wall, which had been there for over 40 years, was not seated below the riverbed.

“It was undermining and uplifting, and there was also a severe crack in the initial wall intruding which caused the road to sink. Where the road is now is where the river used to run, so the entire road is built on river deposits.
"When the contractor got in on Friday and started to excavate, the failure was exacerbated so much that by Saturday night, the retaining wall overturned and the entire road collapsed.”

He said since Saturday the crew had taken apart the old retaining wall and were controlling the water flow to the site by introducing 34-inch high-density polythene pipes.

“Once we control water flow from the bank, the idea is to build a reinforced-concrete retaining wall for the extent of the failure, and then behind that we would begin to construct something known as a mechanically-stabilised earth wall.

"It is a relatively new technology to TT. In its simplest form, it's selected backfill and geo-grids and you compact it and it forms a solid block like a concrete wall. Weather and labour permitting, the road should be fully reinstated and operational. Worst case, it would be a month and a half.”

Scott said while the plan was to have fully operational pedestrian access in place by Friday evening, a temporary passageway for cars was not an option.

“They wouldn't be able to drive. Because of the material there, I'm very fearful of trying to reinstate a temporary drive path. I want to avoid further collapse.”

He said he remained in constant contact with WASA, which had given the go-ahead for building the new structures.

“We also contacted them because we wanted to change the location of a conduit and finalise the depth of the WASA line so that when we go down we don't burst it again and cause further damage.”

Reactions among the residents to the situation were mixed. Some were worried about the inconvenience, especially those whose vehicles were parked on the wrong side of the collapse.

Lydia Edgar, who runs a shop in the area, said the landslide had made it difficult to access goods, especially as the owner’s van got trapped in the village. She said they had to meet the delivery trucks outside the village and then carry the goods to the shop.

“People are mad about the landslide. The road had a little dip and the contractors came to fix it but it got worse. I don’t know if they tested how the soil was, it's like loose dirt was under the road and they kept digging, they weren't bracing. They weren't putting protection to hold up anything, they were just digging – and the whole road just gone.”

Resident Camille Ali said the workers were working fast so while the situation was inconvenient, it would turn out to the benefit of the residents eventually, so they would have to compromise for the time being.