Story and photos by Heppilena Ferguson
A man was burnt to death in a fire that destroyed two houses at Success, East Coast Demerara on Sunday night.
The burnt body of Samsundar Singh, 57, of 31 Second Street, Success, was found on the ground floor of his two-storey home after the fire, which also left three persons homeless, was put out. Police said yesterday that Singh was known to be a heavy drinker and, with his home being completely grilled, he may have been trapped inside. He was last seen taking a drink with friends at his home earlier Sunday evening.
Some residents yesterday recounted that about 10.30 pm they heard popping sounds, which sounded like gunshots. Others said all they heard were calls for help and then they saw the flames.
Singh, who was resident in the US, was to have returned at the end of this month.
When Stabroek News visited the area yesterday, Drupattie Maraj, who lived in the second house, could barely contain herself as her home for the last 39 years was no more. She was unable to save anything. Maraj said she awakened when she started to choke and felt as though she was suffocating. The woman said she heard noises like firecrackers.
She and her husband rear cows and at first she felt that the sound may have been comJing from
the cows. But when she pulled her bedroom curtains to look downstairs, she saw the flames. Maraj said she immediately woke her husband, who checked around their home to see if the fire was internal. It was then they realised that the flames were coming from their neighbour’s home. They woke their 13-year-old daughter and they all ran out of the house and alerted other neighbours.
Persons ran to their rescue but by the time they were able to loose the cows and remove a car and van from their yard, the flames had spread and the top flat of their home caught fire.
“We couldn’t save anything because while my husband was cutting the rope to let the cows run out we were calling out for help,” she said.
Maraj said while all of this was happening they kept calling out for Singh who was known in his village as Moti. “We kept calling out for him saying ‘Moti, Moti wah happen boy,’ but we got no answer,” she added.
She said her home was well furnished and only last week she purchased a new stove.
She was surrounded by neighbours, who comforted her as she sat contemplating her next move. She said her daughter, Devika, was walking around to neighbours’ houses aimlessly.
One neighbour, who was pitching in and helping the family, told Stabroek News that she was awakened at 11 pm by a loud noise. “All I could ah say was ‘Oh my God’ and she [Maraj] was crying but nothing could have been saved,” she said.
Meanwhile, residents told Stabroek News that two fire tenders responded to calls but arrived on the scene about an hour later and had no water. They said the fire trucks were forced to pump water from a main trench in the neighbouring village, Le Ressouvenir, while youths in the area started a bucket brigade to save another house from catching afire.
Chief Fire Officer Marlon Gentle told Stabroek News that two tenders did indeed respond to the
call. However, according to him investigations revealed that a call may have been made to the station some time after the fire started. He said residents may have panicked and tried their own intervention first. He said the call was logged some time after 11.
Gentle said the tender had run out of water and fighters were forced to do long distance pumping from a canal on the public road about two corners away. He also stated that because the location was out of town and the setting different from the more established city locations, the response was different. “ I believe indeed that we may have gotten the call later, since the unit which was dispatched also reported seeing flames since they were at Ogle and by the time they got there the second building had already gone a far way,” he explained.
Meanwhile, he stated that investigations are continuing but that the department would await the results of a post-mortem examination to ascertain exactly what may have led to Singh’s death.
He pointed out too that his information was that the man’s body was found on the lower flat while the fire seemed to have been started on the upper flat.
Gentle said an activity at the house earlier in the evening is also being taken into account.