Trinidad: Family devastated after Divali fire destroys home

Baldeo Soogrim weeps as he recalls how his home was destroyed by fire on Sunday.
Baldeo Soogrim weeps as he recalls how his home was destroyed by fire on Sunday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Di­vali was meant to be a hap­py time for Baldeo Soogrim and his daugh­ter Vis­han­na but one hour be­fore they lit their deyas, a fire broke out at their home and de­voured every­thing they owned.

Dur­ing an emo­tion­al in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Soogrim re­called how he slept in his car on Di­vali night near the smoul­der­ing ru­ins of his house at Rochard Road, Pe­nal, gaz­ing in dis­be­lief at his sud­den mis­for­tune.

 
Soogrim who works as a san­i­ta­tion work­er with the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion said the fire took not just his house­hold valu­ables, jew­ellery and mon­ey but al­so the equip­ment which he used to earn a liv­ing.

“I lost my weld­ing plant, five weed whack­ers, my pres­sure wash­er, two chop saw and my two cars,” Soogrim added.

He said no one was at home when the fire start­ed.

Vis­han­na had gone to vis­it her un­cle and Soogrim had gone to take his friend Mukesh Ram­nath to vis­it his moth­er, a dou­ble am­putee.

 
“Noth­ing was left light­ing in the house. We had al­ready spread out the deyas on a ta­ble out­side so when we come back home we would have start­ed light­ing them,” he re­called.

Around 5 pm, Soogrim said his broth­er called him say­ing the house was on fire. By the time Soogrim ar­rived home, the flames were un­con­trol­lable and had start­ed to spread to his neigh­bour’s house.

Neigh­bour Enez Mitchell said she was at home when she saw the fire. Her fam­i­ly and sev­er­al neigh­bours quick­ly grabbed the gar­den hose and start­ed tack­ling the blaze.

A call was made to the Siparia Fire Sta­tion but by the time fire­fight­ers ar­rived, the en­tire house was de­stroyed. Dam­ages were es­ti­mat­ed to be over $750,000. Soogrim said he was un­sure how he would get mon­ey to re­build his home.

He said his daugh­ter Vis­han­na re­cent­ly start­ed work­ing as an On the Job trainee with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

“At this stage of my life, I don’t know how we will restart every­thing,” Soogri­om cried. Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact him at  799-2454.

Siparia po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.