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The man seen strand­ed on the bon­net of his par­tial­ly sub­merged ve­hi­cle dur­ing Thurs­day’s se­vere flood­ing on Trantrill Road, St Au­gus­tine, has been found safe. Af­ter hours of search­ing, emer­gency of­fi­cials con­firmed the dri­ver, of Asian de­scent, had re­turned home and was lat­er lo­cat­ed at a rac­ing pool in Tu­na­puna.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said she was re­lieved the dri­ver had es­caped un­harmed. His ve­hi­cle had been swept away by strong flood cur­rents ear­li­er in the day, prompt­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse by the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Fire Ser­vice and Po­lice. Of­fi­cers traced him us­ing the ve­hi­cle's num­ber plate, iden­ti­fy­ing him as a Pasea Road res­i­dent.

“I am re­lieved the in­di­vid­ual is un­harmed,” Ameen said. She urged the pub­lic once more not to risk dri­ving through flood­wa­ters and thanked first re­spon­ders, vol­un­teers, and NGOs such as Se­waTT for their ef­forts.