–a week after house falls, crushing her to death

TWELVE-year-old Amber Richards, who died last Friday when the La Bonne Intention (LBI) house at which she and her younger sibling were holidaying collapsed, is to be cremated on Thursday.

This was confirmed Tuesday by the children’s aunt, Wanita Ramgolam, at whose East Coast Demerara house they were staying when the accident occurred.

Ramgolam told the Guyana Chronicle that since what happened to Amber, she can no longer bear to be around the house, and is now staying with her parents at Craig, on the East Bank Demerara.

The distressed woman related that Amber will be cremated at the Good Hope Crematorium, a few villages away from where she met her demise, while her brother is still in hospital, nursing a broken leg and other injuries.

The eight-year-old was injured in the leg, while being partly trapped under debris when the house collapsed on Friday afternoon, pinning his sister.

Ramgolam said she doesn’t think she can go back to live at the house, because she keeps remembering how Amber kept calling out for “aunty” when the house fell on her.

The child was at the time relaxing in a hammock under the small wooden house when it came apart. Her brother was also under the house at the time.

Their aunt, who was upstairs in the house when disaster struck, said she barely got out in time, and that there was nothing she could do for her niece, except scream for help. She said that it was the vibrations that alerted her that something was amiss.

Ramgolam said she used to be in that very hammock a lot, since she’d been living at that house for the last eight years.

She stated that the incident has left the entire family shaken and tramautised, and that it is particularly difficult for Amber’s parents and siblings to cope with her death.

Meanwhile, Commander of ‘C’ Division, Calvin Brutus, told the Guyana Chronicle that they are investigating the death of another 12-year-old, this time Ricardo Naranjan of Non Pareil, some four miles east of LBI, whose body was found hanging from the ceiling of the house in which he reportedly lived alone. The gruesome discovery was made by a sister of his at around 21:30hrs on Monday.

According to reports, Niranjan showed signs of being depressed after learning of Amber’s death on Friday. The two were said to have been friends and communicated either Online or by text-messaging.

Neighbours say they last saw the lad on Sunday night.

Commander Brutus said he is not aware that the two children were “boyfriend and girlfriend”.