Member of Parliament (MP) for North Central Clarendon, Robert Morgan, has urged commuters in Chapelton and neighbouring communities to exercise caution while travelling on the main road between New Road and Cross Road in the constituency.
The roadway has sustained several cracks, and has collapsed in a section, reportedly due to recent heavy rains and last Sunday's back-to-back earthquakes which rocked the country.
In a video on his Facebook page on Friday, Morgan said the National Works Agency (NWA) has been notified of the serious issue.
"Because of the heavy rains and the earthquakes, this entire section of road has collapsed," he stated.
"The National Works Agency has been here; their technical service team has been here, and they are working on a solution to urgently stabilise this section of the road," said Morgan, who is the Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation with responsibility for works.
The minister's address on the development came after a call at Thursday's sitting of the Clarendon Municipal Corporation (CMC) from Councillor of the Chapelton Division, the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) Hershell Brown, for the NWA to fix the compromised section of roadway leading to Chapelton.
"After the earthquake, the road was cracked in a number of places. What has now happened, it is now falling. There are some sections that are probably about a foot lower than other sections," Brown explained.
"If that is not addressed, we're going to be having some serious problems, and there's no alternate route," he suggested.
