Asha Hosein moved to Panchoo Trace, Piparo, six years ago with her husband and their daughter.
Their modest home borders the Piparo Mud Volcano.
When seismic activity started at the volcano on December 24, 2025, Hosein, her daughter, and another child were curious.
“The volcano was making noise…somebody passed and tell my husband, ‘The volcano making noise,’ so busy me, I take the children and I say let we see what going on.
“While we was going, we was hearing the noise harder and harder. When we reach by the corner there, I see it have a set of vehicles, the road already was splitting.”
Before they could get to the volcano, the road started to move, prompting Hosein to return home with the children.
“When we come back home, the Princes Town Corporation come and they tell us to move.”
But Hosein said it was the holiday season and she was hesitant to go to relatives, as she did not want to upset anyone’s holiday plans.
Instead, the family stayed at home, praying the activity would cease and their home would be spared.
By the time the activity tapered off, several homes were damaged and roads in the community were impassable.
Hosein’s home was spared.
“Prayers do pull through. All about in the back road, in the back crack up, but nothing here, by God’s grace, nothing ent happen.
“But I notice the pole to the back, the T&TEC wire, it pull to the back. But nothing wouldn’t happen…by the end of the day, if something have to happen to yuh, it will happen.”
She said in the almost-three months since the incident, residents have been left feeling forgotten.
“We feel like if we left out, if you have nowhere to go, we trying to get a piece of land just in case something happen but we don’t know the whereabouts, how to go about it, we fraid to go and occupy a piece of land, next thing the government come and break we down and go with it.”
She is left with little choice but to pray that any future seismic activity will not destroy her home.
“We have to stay here until further notice, we don’t know what will happen.
“What we go do? Is just we doh have nowhere to go really right now. Things hard, work hard, transport hard, everything hard, it not the same as it used to be again.”
Another resident, Selwyn Silochan, said he has lived in Piparo on and off for all of his 60 years.
He was riding his bicycle when News 19 TT caught up with him. His main concern is for the roads to be repaired.
“Since this current eruption, the road get impassable and they close it off but recently they make it a one-lane, I don’t know who fixed it.
“The traffic limited to vehicles what could go through the rough, so some people using the other road.”
He said the community was “making do” with the current situation but he appealed for the government to intervene and restore the roadway.
“I go like to see they make the road improved and more passable so everybody could use it, the road come like the lifeline of the community,” he said.
News 19 TT contacted Works and Infrastructure Minister Jearlean John about the residents calls to repair the road.
In a statement on March 18, John said after the activity at the volcano, the ministry did work to restore limited access for residents at the damaged section at Robinson Hill to reconnect them to Guaracara Tabaquite Road via Housanie Trace and Piparo Road.
She said the ministry and the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation also carried out more work in the area on December 29 and 30.
But John said at this time, the ministry cannot rebuild the road.
“A full reinstatement of the site cannot be undertaken at that time, as any permanent works are contingent on the geological activity stabilising.
“The area continues to be monitored, and the Ministry remains committed to advancing a permanent solution once conditions allow.”
News 19 TT also contacted Housing Minister David Lee about calls from Sybil Badal and her son Vickram Moonesar for assistance in getting a Housing Development Corporation (HDC) home.
Badal’s Robinson Hill home was badly damaged by the volcano’s tremors. Large cracks formed on the concrete floor and around the posts that support the two-storey building.
Her son completed an application for an HDC home in February but the family says they have heard nothing since.
Up until publication time, Lee had not responded.