By Prior Beharry
PARIA Fuel Trading Company has moved from rescuing the four divers lost in a pipeline to recovering their bodies.
This was stated by officials of the company at a press conference in Pointe-a-Pierre on Sunday evening.
Present were Paria Chairman Newman George and Chief Executive Officer Mushtaq Mohammed.
Mohammed said that due to the time that the men have been in the pipeline the probability of them being alive was very low.
He also stated that the risk of sending other divers for recovery was too high.
Mohammed said the decision was made after consultation with diving experts, the contracting company LMCS and the Coast Guard.
Five divers were welding a 36-inch pipeline at Berth #6 of Paria on Friday when they were sucked into it.
One of them Christopher Boodram crawled his way out of the line and there has been no sign of the other four – Rishi Nagassar, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry and Kazim Ali Jr.
Officials said that the recovery operation will entail using a liquid displacement process.
Paria in a release on Sunday before the press conference stated that in an interview with Boodram, the divers fell into the pipeline. But when questioned at the press conference that there were reports that the men were sucked in, Mohammed said that was still unclear.
Boodram is at the San Fernando General Hospital.
As the owner of a Commercial Diving company in the Northwest for 35 years, Safety-was our prime object ( not money)/. We had a 0 accident rate for the entire time.