-fire service criticised for response time
Four people were left homeless when a fire ravaged most of their Martyr’s Ville, Mon Repos home, yesterday morning.
Latchmin Ramdass’s two-storey house went up in flames at approximately 8.30 am, shortly after neighbours noticed the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) connection to the house sparking. No one was injured but family pets perished in the fire.
When Stabroek News visited the scene shortly after 1 pm, charred rubble and heavily cracked concrete walls were all that remained of the Lot 205 Fifth Street, Martyr’s Ville home, where Ramdass had lived for the past 13 years. The front fence was intact, while several flags close to the gate escaped damage. Ramdass, 42, was still in shock and lay in her neighbour’s hammock sobbing.
Her son, Shyam Ramdass, told this newspaper that he was at work when he got the news that his house was on fire. The man said that he immediately left his workplace and headed home.
The Guyana Fire Service had not yet arrived on the scene when he got there shortly before 9 am, Shyam explained. According to him, at that point only three-fourths of the upper flat of the house was in flames and by the time fire ranks arrived the most of the house had been burnt. “De entire thing was up in flames,” Shyam said. “When my mother get here she fainted and still not feeling righted yet.
Latchmin said she left her home just before 8 am to go pay her water bill. “My nephew keep calling me,” she recounted. “He tell me that he want to reach me and I ask he if anything wrong but he said no. On my way to my nephew house I meet de maid in the market and she tell me about the house. Ah can’t take it,” she added between sobs. “I didn’t short ah nothing. I work hard for everything in my house. We gon stay with my brother but how long he go keep we?”
Danwattie Mahadeo, the woman’s mother, was home alone when the fire started. Mahadeo informed that she was sweeping downstairs when she heard something “go off” but paid it no mind. “I hear de thing go off but I de sweeping under de bed downstairs so I ain’t tek it for nothing. Is when I go outside I see the upstairs right hand corner on fire,” the old woman said.
While they managed to save four of their dogs, four puppies perished in the fire.
Nandranie Narine, another of the Ramdasses’s neighbours, said that she became aware of the fire when she heard Mahadeo’s screams.
Narine said that the old woman panicked and began to scream but couldn’t get out of the yard because the gate was padlocked.
“They would normally keep the gate keys on a post. But by she panic like she couldn’t remember it was there, so I had to run over and open the gate so she could get out,” Narine said.
Ganesham Nandram’s Lot 206 Fifth Street home was slightly damaged by the fire. All the side windows of his house were shattered by the heat and two 400-gallon plastic water tanks melted. Nandram explained that after the flames from Latchmin’s house began to scorch the side of his house, neighbours formed a bucket brigade and soaked his house with water.
“I moved most of the things in my house outside just in case the fire had spread,” the man said. “Most of the damage done to my house is from the water… mostly electronic things get damage.”
He added that neighbours did their best to render assistance and if the fire service had responded in a timely fashion then they might have been able to save the lower flat of the house.
