– Public-spirited citizens avert major disaster
MAJOR DISASTER was averted yesterday when public-spirited citizens and other interested parties rescued and took to safety over 40 children from the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security’s Drop-In Centre for Children, on Hadfield Street here in the city.
Marcy Newsun, a security guard at the neighbouring National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS),  told the Guyana Chronicle that about 5:45pm she was manning her post when she was alerted by a co-worker that there was a fire next door.
Newsun said on going to the side of the building to see whether what her colleague said was true, she saw thick black smoke billowing from the upper flat of the two-storey concrete building and the children scrambling to get out.
She said she and her colleague quickly alerted passers-by and together they managed to get the children out of the building. Up to the time of writing, no one could say for sure how the fire started, except that fire tenders from the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) arrived on the scene quickly and doused the flames.
When the flames died down, it was noticed that the back portion of the upper flat of the building was partly destroyed, and that in spite of running the risk of losing their lives, passers-by had been able to get most of the household appliances and other items out of the building and to relative safety.
Reports are that all of the items at reference are accounted for, and are now being housed at a nearby premise, where the children were also being kept until the Minister of Labour, Human Services, Ms Priya Manickchand, and Minister within the Ministry of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsarran arrived on the scene.
Also at the scene were Chief Fire Officer, Mr Marlon Gentle and members of the Guyana Police Force (GFS).