An elderly St Joseph man is living in fear that his Melvins Hill, St Joseph home may soon be destroyed by land slippage.
Timothy Smith said that as a result of “heavy showers and thunder storms”, the land which his house rested on had experienced severe land slippage, which was getting ominously closer to his home.
The 86-year-old said he believed the slippage was triggered by the cutting down of a breadfruit tree, which was broken during the passing of storm Tomas which wreaked havoc in the country last October.
“When the storm hit, it caused the breadfruit tree to fall down and then the people come and cut it down a little while after so that they could have restored current to the power lines. I come home from the hospital in the 10:30 a.m. bus and I see the land just gone. I frightened now that if there is more land slide, it will make my house fall down.”
“If there is any more rain, I don’t know what will happen with me,” Smith said.
“The police ask if I want to move for a while to be on the safe side, and I told them that I will hold on and see if there is more bad weather, then I will move. But since then, we ain’t had much bad weather so the land ain’t slide anymore. I call whoever I could have called to help and to look at it,” he stated.
