A fire yesterday, which reportedly started after gas bottles exploded in a Chinese Restaurant at Grove, East Bank Demerara, flattened four buildings and scorched a fifth, leaving behind millions of dollars in damage and some 29 people homeless.
Firemen fought for hours to contain the blaze which was hampered initially by the lack of water and later leaking hoses. Late yesterday afternoon, fire officials and police were conducting investigations into the origin of the blaze which has left many residents angry and in shock.
Reports reaching Stabroek News are that around 2.30 pm at least two loud explosions were heard coming from the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant located at Lot 50 Grove on the public road. Shortly afterwards, flames were seen and the owner, identified as Loius, was seen fetching items out. The fire then spread to Lot 49 which housed a business in the bottom flat and a residence upstairs then to Lot 48 where an extended family and a tenant lived.
Based on the accounts of the residents, the fire then spread to a house on the other side of the Chinese restaurant at Lot 51. The building next to that, which is abandoned, was also scorched.
Hundreds of people flocked the road causing a heavy build-up of traffic as firemen fought hard to contain the blaze. Traffic ranks and other members of the police force were out in their numbers assisting with crowd and traffic control.
At one point something exploded amidst the rubble.
Loius, when approached by Stabroek News shortly after he was questioned by officials denied that his gas bottles exploded and caused the fire. He said he saw the fire on the stairs but did not know how it started. “It never start from the gas bottle never,” the clearly distressed man said, adding that all of his gas bottles were at the front of the building, before declining to speak further.
Angry residents, including victims, yesterday blamed the proprietor of the restaurant for the fire. According to one man, Loius had 12 gas bottles under the outside staircase which led to the upper flat where 14 persons including children and an elderly couple lived.
Anjou Ganesh also said that the man stored gas bottles under a staircase. The distraught woman, whose house at Lot 48 was completed gutted, said there were usually ten 100-pound gas cylinders there and many reports were made to authorities who did nothing. The woman did not say to whom the reports were made.
The woman said when the fire erupted she was conducting business in the city and got the shock of her life when she returned home.
The elderly woman yesterday stressed that she spent all her life “building this house”. She appealed for donations of wood so that she could rebuild her home since she has nowhere to go.
Her daughter, Savitree, who was the only one at home, explained that her mother lived upstairs while she, her husband and two children along with a tenant occupied the lower flat.
She said her neighbour started pelting bricks on her roof and was apparently shouting fire. The woman said she thought he was shouting for thief, but when she ventured out she saw “de big smoke and then de heat start to come. I couldn’t get to save nothing”. She said the fire had already engulfed her neighbour’s house and it quickly spread to hers because the two roofs are jammed together.
The distraught woman said that in no time the buildings were gutted and she pointed out that there was nothing the fire fighters could have done to save them when they arrived. The woman stressed that what compounded the situation was that the first engine to arrive had no water and it took about half an hour before they found some.
While she was speaking to Stabroek News, fire was still burning in what
was left of her home.
Savitree added that the tenant’s belongings too were destroyed. Her children aged 11 and 14 years lost all their school material.
Over at Savitree’s neighbour, public-spirited citizens were busy loading drinks that were salvaged into a truck. The bottom flat housed a wholesale drinks store while five persons lived upstairs. Plucked poultry was also sold from the premises.
The owner Sookraj James was too devastated to speak when approached by this newspaper. However, another relative, Neil James, recounted that he was at home when the fire started. The young man said they immediately had to start “breaking the house and taking out everything”.
A woman who was standing nearby said that occupants almost lost their lives. She said they had to break down a grill door to get out of the building since the fire was too big to escape at another point.
Beg for
another month
The building that housed the Chinese restaurant was owned by pensioner Alma Pooran. Fourteen persons lived in the upper flat and three – Loius, his wife and a child in an apartment behind the restaurant.
A visibly shaken Pooran told Stabroek News she had rented the lower flat to Loius who was supposed to have moved, but had begged her for another month “so he could fix up his house” located several corners away.
The angry woman said she now regrets her kindness adding that now she has no house.
She recalled that eight years ago she renovated her entire house.
Her husband sustained a small cut during his search for water to help quell the flames.
“… Now I deh on de road. I don’t have nowhere to go, I don’t have a cent. All meh lil money that ah had bun up,” the woman said sadly.
Meanwhile her daughter-in-law Bibi Shamiza Pooran said she had just exited the bathroom and was in her bedroom when she heard Loius call out to her father-in-law. When she pushed open her bedroom door, her kitchen was on fire.
The woman said she told her children to run out of the house and immediately alerted her in-laws.
Fighting back tears, she said kind-hearted persons had to give her clothing to put on. She said they will be staying at the masjid but did not know how long they will be accommodated there since the family is big but they do not want to be separated.
Sobbing, the woman said her husband had some $2million in shampoo to sell, which was now destroyed along with other items he had to sell for people. She added that the computer with information pertaining to his business transactions was also destroyed.
“We done buy we whole month groceries and all,” the sobbing woman added.
Meanwhile, Yvonne Ramkishon said she was alerted to the screams of fire and when she looked out there was a big blaze and smoke. She lived on the southern side of the restaurant at Lot 51. She said she immediately exited the house which was also occupied by her two grandchildren, one of whom is disabled.
The woman, who was seated on a rock at the side of the road surrounded by friends, said her home was fully furnished due to over 30 years of hard work,
She stressed that there was no community assistance as she recalled that she asked a man for help to bring out some things from her home, and he just looked at her and walked away.
Her granddaughter, who was attending classes in the city when the fire started, was inconsolable.
