NWA: A lot of work to clear Gordon Town landslide
Published:Sunday | November 8, 2020 | 12:24 AMCorey Robinson - Senior Staff Reporter
Workers and contractors of the National Works Agency (NWA) were busy yesterday trying to clear an “unusual” landslide which blocked the Gordon Town main road, leaving hundreds of rural St Andrew residents stranded.
Stephen Shaw, communications manager at the NWA, said calls about the eroding hillside reached the agency early yesterday morning, and a team was dispatched to clear it. Shortly after, however, the mountainous slippage came down in a rush.
Luckily, there were no reports of injuries and Shaw said an assessment of any damage would be done later, as a retaining wall may have been flattened by tumbling boulders.
“It seemed the landslide was waiting on the clean-up before it came down in all its glory,” said Shaw, noting that work to clear the roadway was expected to extend into this morning.
BILLIONS IN DAMAGE
The Gordon Town main road is among several thoroughfares that were slated for repair works following heavy rainfall from adverse weather systems in recent weeks, causing billions in damage.
“It is very unusual because it is one massive embankment that has come down, and then you have some smaller pockets that keep sliding. So we have been at it from morning. We have moved it a couple times, and then I was just sent a video where it was sliding like an earthquake. It is going to be a lot of work,” Shaw said.
Last week, engineers from the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica and the Jamaica Institute of Engineers blamed flooding problems on poor building practices and neglect on behalf of residents and politicians who set up housing on unstable soil. Poor waste disposal was also among the list of causes cited by the experts of Jamaica’s ensuing flooding and landslide problems.
Yesterday, footage of the landslide showed residents reacting in horror as the loosened boulders crashed onto the roadway.
In one video that captured an earlier occurrence, residents clutched umbrellas as they skipped past the boulders on the road. One woman fell and was hastily helped to her feet seconds before a section of the mountainside came crashing down, not far from where she fell.