Heavy winds around 9 am yesterday resulted in five houses and a cash crop farm being destroyed at Bath Housing Scheme, West Coast Berbice; a couple also suffered minor injury.
Reports are that Dinesh Ramkarran was about to leave his one-bedroom house with his wife when it collapsed during the freak storm.
Another resident, Sukdeo Sugrim said he was under his house “processing eschallot” when he saw “the black cloud go over the sun.”
He told his wife Shoma that he was going to “pull out a few banks of eschallot before the rain come.” After he was finished, he said, it started to drizzle and the branches of trees in the vicinity started to sway wildly.
Just then the “wind came with a brutal force” and “me see zinc start to fly over abe head.” Two landed on the electricity pole, resulting in immediate power outage.
Sukdeo said he went outside to watch and then noticed that some of his own zinc sheets were in the air. Items in his house including beds were soaked.
“Some of the zinc just keep flying in the air and go straight across the road to another area,” he pointed out.
The most frightening part, he said, was when he saw the house next door “lift off the ground” by the wind and start “floating” towards his house.
Before the house dropped close to his fence a section broke off and landed in his yard. It also damaged his fence.
He said his seven-year-old daughter started to scream and he too became confused and held onto one of his house’s posts. But “everything finished within seconds… me couldn’t believe it. Ah never experience something like that,” he said.
It was Nayo Sukdeo’s house that was moved and dropped close to his fence. The woman said the house, which was unoccupied, was recently painted. She estimated her losses to be in excess of $200,000.
Another resident, Martin, 54, who was preparing for his daughter’s wedding yesterday, said the zinc tent he had made was knocked down.
His outdoor pit latrine was also upturned, PVC pipes leading to the upper flat of his house were destroyed and celery plants in his garden were uprooted.
He said the wedding would go ahead yesterday, but was distressed that it would not be as he had planned it. Another unoccupied house was also damaged.
When this newspaper arrived in the area, Regional Chairman Harrinarine Baldeo was at the scene assessing the damage and comforting families. (Shabna Ullah)
