1 dead, 4 homeless in Diamond fire
This was what was left of the Singhs home after the fire on Monday which claimed the life of his 59-year-old uncle (Delano Williams photo)
This was what was left of the Singhs home after the fire on Monday which claimed the life of his 59-year-old uncle (Delano Williams photo)

A 59-YEAR-OLD man perished in a fire of unknown origin which gutted a two- storey house at Lot 795 Block X Section ‘A’ Diamond, East Bank Demerara, around 03:00 hrs on Monday.The blaze has also left four family members homeless.

Thakoor Singh died when the fire which started in the garage where he lived, spread to other parts of the large house, reducing most of it to rubbles.

When Guyana Chronicle visited the scene around mid-morning, owner of the property Chatendra Singh, 40, was under an unfinished house opposite to where he lived, deep in thought with friends around him offering their support.

The fire was already put out and a minibus also damaged severely by the fire was parked in the yard. Only a few plants in front of the yard remained untouched.

Singh related that he was asleep with his wife Kamini and two children Sachin and Amisha, ages 15 and 13 in the upper flat of the building where he lived when he heard a strange noise.

Chatendra Singh displays burn marks he received while he caught his wife and daughter who jumped from the blazing house. (Delano Williams photo)

His uncle Thakoor Singh lived in the garage attached to the lower flat of the house.

Some years ago, had an accident on a ship and suffered head injuries which left him forgetful at times, Singh said. He further explained that the man had nowhere else to live and so he took him in since he and his family moved into their house 12 years ago.

“I heard some noise and it woke me up. I tell me wife something wrong. When I opened the bedroom door the hall inside the house had a lot of smoke. Me daughter and me son woke up too. After seeing the smoke I done realise well something wrong,” Singh said.

It was after he ran out of the house with his son closely behind he saw the blaze coming from the garage.

“So I decide to run downstairs now to try to extinguish the fire and my son run behind me. When I arrive outside, now (I observed that) the fire start in the garage. When I look at the fire now, the fire was too much, done engulf (the garage),” he related.

TO THE RESCUE
It was impossible at that time to save the elderly man, and realising that the blaze had become even more dangerous; he ran to the back of the house and climbed on a black tank to save the rest of his family.

“Me wife and me daughter couldn’t handle the smoke, so she and me daughter run to the back verandah. Luckily, we didn’t lock the door and she open the back door and went on the verandah.”

There they found that they were trapped and Singh desperately mounted on the tank and caught his daughter who was the first to jump from the building. His wife was rescued in similar fashion and the family ran to safety out of their yard before watching in disbelief as their house, a minibus, and all that they owned, go up in flames.

“I had to tell me daughter jump and I had to ketch she and bring she down and the same thing with me wife, she had to jump and I had to slide she down.”

The man complained that the Guyana Fire Service took over an hour to arrive at the scene and believes that if they had responded in a timely manner, at least the top flat of his home could have been saved.

Though neighbours formed a bucket brigade, it was not enough to save his home.
“The neighbours call the fire station, then they arrive like nearly hour and a half. They (firemen) say that them had some other fire in Kaneville,” he told this publication.

Even as relatives and neighbours surround Singh, while his wife and children were at the Diamond Police Station assisting with investigations, he murmured: “Me don’t even know in wha direction fuh turn right now. Me family, when they come back, we gonna make a decision on what to do,” he said, as he noted that everything he owned was destroyed.

“Nothing… no document, no phone, no ID card, no transport, no passport, no clothes. Actually, this is somebody give me this beach pants and jersey. No insurance,” Singh stressed.

 

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