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6 years after homes slipped into sea, Cedros families no closer to HDC home ownership - Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

LITTERED along the beach at Bamboo Village, Cedros, are the remnants of the home Kareem Mohammed once shared with his family.

The family's electricity pole, beams that once held up their roof, pieces of the foundation, two concrete staircases, electrical wiring and piping and a large chunk of their gallery, with the pretty cream-and-brown tiles still intact, have almost become part of the shoreline, as the shifting tide covers these relics with sand.

A ten-minute hike from the area where their house stood almost seven years ago, through tall grass and bushes, took the Sunday Newsday team to the beachfront.

The well-used track was created when Mohammed's home slid off the hillside in February 2018, bringing national attention to the previously quiet seaside community.

In the aftermath of that traumatic day, Mohammed and his family were relocated to the Lake View Housing Corporation complex in Point Fortin, where they still live.

Mohammed's family was one of seven evacuated and moved to Lake View.

In an interview with Sunday Newsday at his home, Mohammed, 29, recalled the terrifying moments that led to the destruction of his childhood home.

"It was so traumatic when it happened.

"What I could remember was the ground was shaking and everybody just had to run at the moment of it. Because, while like pieces of the walls were falling and crumbling and whatnot, like neighbours around were trying to help us to remove things from the house and like put it on the side of the road. But within that, it's like a quick moment where everything just started to shake and everybody started run, like you run for life.

"And then we saw like the road started to crack open. It was like a scene from a movie, basically."

His parents still visit where their house once stood, looking on as more pieces of the hillside slip into the sea.

"Mom and Dad, they go every week, every day – almost every day – when they get a chance, they go. Because that's the only place that they feel comfortable, that they feel at home, you know."

[caption id="attachment_1122549" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The Bamboo Village, Cedros landslide in May 2019. - File photo[/caption]

Mohammed has accepted the change in lifestyle from moving from the countryside, but he too longs to return to Cedros.

"I would love to be there as well. That's where I grew up and that's where I know as home as well."

Life in Lake View has also been difficult for his family, as their new home came with its own suite of issues.

Mohammed's mother Charmion Gunness showed Sunday Newsday stains on the walls from what she said were leaking sewer lines. She said there were two sewer pipes in front of her door that overflow from time to time and a third in her kitchen that often overflows.

She said numerous reports to the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) yielded no responses.

Mohammed surmised this was owing to the family's unknown status with HDC.

He said the family had an agreement to occupy the townhouse.

"I don't know if it's because of our sta

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