The
incident happened at around 2 am in the early hours of the morning just after
passing the St Barnabas Cathedral compound.
It
was raining during the time.
Gerard
Laore (pictured) who was driving up on a high speed up the road had to turn his
vehicle into a drain after he saw the old huge abalolo tree infront of him
starting to give way.
“I
was speeding up the Kola Ridge road when I saw the tree starting to fall,” he
said.
“I
saw another vehicle coming down as well. But I am the one on a high speed going
up the hill.
“In
order for me to avoid the tree falling on my vehicle, I had to divert the
vehicle to the drain to avoid it,” the 20 year old boy said.
He
said if he did not ditch the vehicle the tree might have smashed his vehicle.
He remained unharmed following the incident.
The
double cabin hilux spent the night at the spot before being pulled out
yesterday morning.
The
hilux sustained damages to its front.
It’s
understood the current wet weather had caused the tree to fall after its roots
could not hold the ground anymore lose as a result continuous erosion of the
soil from the rain.
Honiara
City Council Work Manager, John Labu visited the site as a local contractor was
busy clearing the tree on the road.
He
said it’s the responsibility of the Ministry of Infrastructure Development
(MID) to cut trees beside the road.
But
he said the HCC Head of Divisions discussed on Tuesday to cut the tree after no
response from MID.
“We
plan to cut the tree over the weekend but the problem happened now,” he said.
“The
slow process to cut trees on the road that is risk to the public also
contributes to the problem.
“This
is because the planning department in the Council has to approve it before we
go on cutting the trees that are risky to the lives of public,” Mr Labu said.
MID
said normally the Council called them to cut down the tree.
“We
are ready to response to any problem beside the road,” a MID spokesperson said.
“We
have a contractor engaged to deal with these problem.”
Solo
Enviro Beautification executive officer, Tiffany Tuhaika said feeder roads like
Kolaridge was the responsibility of the Council.
She said SEB was only responsible to beautify the City road and round about junctions in the city by planting trees.
By EDDIE OSIFELO
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