An early morning fire today gutted three rooms of the the Wismar Christianburg Secondary School (WCSS) at Linden and classes have been suspended for the day.
The fire, suspected to be electrical in nature, broke out some time after 2.30 am in the top flat of the four-storey building, completely destroying three rooms. The classrooms on the third and second storey, directly below where the fire was, along with one teacher’s apartment on the bottom flat, have suffered extensive water damage.
One thousand, one hundred and fifty students of the school are affected.
The fire was first spotted by teacher Roxanne Bacchus who lived in one of the teachers’ quarters of the building.
According to one of the three children who were at home in the apartment at the time, she was awakened by her mother who alerted her to the fire. “First she said like water come on early and overflowing cause water was flowing down from upstairs,” the child said.
But on carefully checking her mother realized that something was amiss. “She seh nah man that sounding really funny and with that she went outside and all we hear she start screaming fire, fire.”
The children alerted other occupants on the lower flat while Bacchus sought assistance from neighbours.
Bacchus was taken to the Linden Hospital Complex shortly after being assisted in evacuating her children and belongings from the apartment. There are eight apartments on the bottom flat for teachers and their families; one is unoccupied and one is under repairs.
