A fire, suspected to be electrical in origin, gutted the home that was occupied by members of a North Sophia family, who lost all of their possessions.
At around 12.30 pm, an alarm was raised by a neighbour, who informed members of the family that fire was seen in the top flat of the home.
Within minutes, the fire razed the three-bedroom house, located at 35 Block R, North Sophia and occupied by Umawatie Premraj, 61, called ‘Chiney,’ her husband, Sasenarine Singh, 63, their daughter Chandrawattie (only name given), her husband, and their two children.
Premraj, who was still in disbelief when this newspaper visited, said she had just returned home with her granddaughter when a neighbour told her he saw fire in the top flat of the home.
“The neighbour called and say ‘Aunty Chiney you cooking anything?’ I said no and then he tell me they seeing fire upstairs. When I peep, I see the smoke and fire and hustle to scramble for my husband because he is in a wheelchair,” the distraught woman recounted.
She said she raised an alarm and other neighbours responded and assisted her to get her husband out of the house. She quickly collected her granddaughter and followed behind.
“It just went up in flames. It has to be electrical because we don’t cook upstairs and we ah spend whole day downstairs because my husband can’t move about. I don’t know how it ketch fire, I don’t know,” a grieving Premraj stressed.
“The lil shop that we does earn we lil money from to eat and pay bills is gone too. Everything inside destroy,” the distraught Premraj added.
The woman added that although the fire service promptly arrived, the entire top flat was already destroyed. Nonetheless, fire-fighters managed to save the concrete structure of the bottom flat but there the damage done made the area uninhabitable.
Meanwhile, the woman’s daughter, Chandrawattie, said she and her husband were working on the road when they received the call about their house being on fire.
The woman and her husband, who are minibus operators, explained that they were unable to save anything. She noted that when they arrived, the house was already engulfed by flames.
“We come home [and] didn’t get to save anything. What we have on on we skin, that is all we have. Nothing was saved nothing,” she lamented.
She said that the family will be willing to accept any assistance from the public as they seek to rebuild. They can be contacted on 642-3858 or 617-6234.
