GOVERNMENT’S CHIEF?GEOLOGIST Andre Brathwaite said yesterday there was no need for residents of Brittons Hill to panic as a result of last month’s discovery of a cave in their area.
However, he reiterated an earlier warning for residents to stay away from the dangerous hole, found less than a mile from Arch Cot, where a tragic cave-in claimed five lives four years ago.
On March 24, Brathwaite first raised alarm about the cave, which is located on the grounds of the Eastern Caribbean Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventists offices at Brydens Avenue.
“This underground cave is not a safe area, people need to keep behind the caution tape, but that does not apply to the general area. People who are on the hard surface on the church compound, have no need to fear.
“From my inspection, it should not cause a nationwide panic. It should not even cause a Brittons Hill panic. However, when we see these sort of situations, I would implore the community to let us know, so we can come and investigate further,” he said.
Brathwaite, 41, who was schooled in Sierra Leone and went to university in Canada and France, said the cave was running southwest and was 25 feet wide and 15 feet deep, with the potential to drop further.
He explained that the top layer of the rock was soft and coral was sitting on a large portion of the rock, which was being eroded by an underwater zone.
“The rock is crumbly and when I slapped the surface, it fell down like flour through a sieve. Until further investigations can be done, people should keep away from the area. More investigations need to be done . . . more ground penetrating radar needs to be incorporated to find out what the underground system looks like,” he said.
During his latest inspection of the area, Brathwaite also unearthed some archaeological artefacts that included two kettles made of cast iron and suggested that the area may have been home for a Barbadian family more than 100 years ago.
“I spotted about eight artefacts, which, in my professional experience, I estimate could be over 100 years old. I am not an archaeologist, but there seems to have been some form of life here many years ago.
“They could have cooked in there and if it was a landfill, they could have thrown garbage in there. I also found carbon, not new carbon, but old chunks of charcoal made in the old-fashioned way, which is wood that was buried in an anaerobic (not needing oxygen to live) system, so it shows that there was some sort of life activity going on,” he said.
The discovery brought back memories of the ill-fated incident at Brittons Cross Road, St Michael, where an apartment complex collapsed into a cave beneath it, killing the Codrington family.
