KINGSTON, Jamaica— The University of Chester in partnership with the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation is conducting research on soil instability in Bull Bay and Shooters Hill in Eastern St Andrew.

At the recent meeting of the Disaster Preparedness and Public Health Committee, Parish Disaster Coordinator Terry Forrester said that the UK-based university would be conducting landslide investigations and doing detailed mapping and analysis of the major landslides which occurred in Shooters Hill and Bull Bay during the heavy rainfall in November.

Forrester said that the university would use the data to determine the landslide character and level of movement.

At the November council meeting, Kingston Mayor Delroy Williams had said that he had asked the Engineering and Planning Department of the corporation to gather and share data and work closely with the government’s soil, mining and geology departments. Data from the study  would assist in development and land use in the area, he said then.

Williams had said that in the entire East St Andrew area, soil instability was a major problem in terms of landslides, mudslides, debris flow and rock fall.

He said that the data would help in planning and in determining where development takes place and what type of development can take place.   

Claudienne Edwards