As efforts are being made to upgrade the fire prevention systems at dormitories and schools across the country, Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn yesterday stated that none of the doors at the Mahdia Secondary School’s female dormitory were secured by grills.
Speaking with this newspaper via telephone, Benn explained that they are looking at ways in which they can enhance fire prevention measures. He stated that while the Guyana Fire Service has been participating in drills and talks at schools, he stated that they would have to relook at ways in which they can boost their efforts.
“Yes we will, obviously we have to upgrade the efforts… we have been doing [fire readiness inspection], fire drills and fire talks in schools that still happens with students and guards, but what we have to do is a comprehensive assessment in the dormitories to get a better handle of the situation,” Benn asserted.
The deaths of 19 students, 18 of whom are from the Mahdia Secondary School, following a fire has raised serious questions over the fire prevention capabilities within the live-in school system.
The nineteen children who perished have been identified as twin sisters Mary and Martha Dandrade, Bibi Rita Jeffrey, Sabrina John, Loreen Evans, Belnisa Evans, Omefia Edwin, Natalie Bellarmine, Andrea Roberts, Lorita Williams, Nickleen Robinson, Sherena Daniels, Eulanda Carter, Lisa Roberts, Cleoma Simon, Tracil Thomas, and sisters Delecia Edwards and Arianna Edwards along with five-year-old Adonijah Jerome, the son of the caretaker. A number of them hailed from villages outside of Mahdia.
Benn stated that from his briefing with firefighters it has not been established whether the students participated in any fire drills and or if there were adequate fire prevention and escape routes in place at the dorm.
“Where the fire started there was an area with mattresses stored… those caught alight and the fire got into the plastic type ceiling and proceeded along the roof with burning pieces falling onto beds which are of sponge, it went very quickly.”
Benn, who was part of the team of government officials led by President Irfaan Ali to Mahdia, emphasised “There was no door which was grilled. The windows were grilled but it was wooden doors.”
“It appears in the panic to get out, with a large number of girls going towards the room in which the housemother was [time was lost]. She heard the commotion and heard them pounding on her door and when she opened the door there was this fire and her little son ran away from her and he died. She went to the door, with them around her,” the minister related from what he was told.
Approximately 10 bodies were found in the vicinity of the dorm mother’s quarters. It is likely that they were trying to get to her room.
Benn said he gathered that the housemother was caught off guard by the situation and in a panicked and frantic situation as she tried to open the main door the keys dropped twice and she had difficulty finding the right key for the lock. By that time when the door was open, the whole place was on fire. Benn clarified that while the doors to the building were not grilled they were locked from the inside.
“Yes, well is nighttime, the doors were locked and you would have had to open the doors from inside to get out, When the students went banging on the door [of the housemother she] had to open the main door,” he stated.
While praising the Mahdia firefighters and public-spirited citizens for their response, which resulted in lives being saved, the Home Affairs Minister said that there was no telephone call to the fire station but rather a “running fire call.”
He explained that after neighbours were alerted, a man jumped into his pick-up and drove to the firefighters on duty at the station.
In the response, both on- and off-duty firemen responded along with auxiliary firefighters and members of the community policing group. On responding, he stated that the fire service created three holes in the walls and rescued those who were still alive and trapped.
No guards
Meanwhile, Samantha Edwards-John who along with her husband Parkinson John first responded to the fire, stated that from all indications there was no security guard on duty. Noting that they live close by the dormitory, she said they did not hear an alarm from the guard at the school.
It was her dogs “Blackeye, Rex, and Scrawny” who woke them up with their howling and barks that led her husband to observe the fire.
“I told him holler on the dogs but this time they were trying to tell us something is happening. They were running from one end of the yard to the next barking and howling. When he get up, he tell me the school dorm on fire and he rush out in his boxers to go help them,” she related.
According to her, when he arrived at the scene it was then the main door was open and he tried to rescue those who were at the front. She too noted that grills secured just the windows of the flat concrete building. However, she pointed out that by time they realised students were trapped at the rear door of the building it was too late. That door was secured with a lock.
“I really feel it for these children because they are like my own. Every time they pass is `Auntie’, they always calling on us,” Edwards-John said as she reminisced on the children and wished she could have done more to save them.
Some of the students went to her home during the course of the night as they witnessed the fire ravaging the building they lived in.
John had previously told this newspaper that he went twice into the building which was filled with smoke, to save who he could. “I went over in my underwear alone and tried to save them. On the left side of the building there was only smoke so I rush in and try to get them to exit. The smoke had them bad but I wrap a cloth around my face and run and grab who I can.”
According to his wife, his bravery now requires him to receive oxygen from the hospital as his lungs were scarred due to him being in the smoky environment.
Acting Fire Chief Dwayne Scotland told Stabroek News on Monday that the fire was maliciously set.
Scotland, in response to questions from this newspaper, stated that there was limited evidence to suggest fire prevention measures were in place at the dormitory. He noted that while they found empty fire extinguishers, it is uncertain whether they came from within the dorm or from external efforts to fight the fire.
Mahdia Mayor, David Adams, had told this newspaper that the building was constructed sometime around 2011 but was not always grilled. It is unclear to him when the windows and doors were secured by grills.
Going forward, he stressed that they will have to revisit the measures and likely increase the number of security guards in the compound. As it is, only one guard watches over the compound.
From his independent investigations, he further stated that the students were not exposed to fire drills nor was the building equipped with fire escapes.
“In the aftermath we will now have to look at measures to have in place water mains so that the fire service can work effectively and relook at the security measures in place,” Adams stated.
