A GUYANA Power and Light (GPL) wood-ants infested lamp post crashed onto a Guyhoc Park house last night with three children narrowly escaping injuries.
The lamp post broke at the base and landed precariously on the building.
The children – two girls aged 12 and eight and their four-year-old brother were in the home and their mother, Atesha Rodrigues had just stepped out into the yard and was speaking with a neighbour when the accident happened. Atesha’s husband, Chad who works in down-town Georgetown, was still at work and on receiving the message, immediately alerted GPL.
Atesha said the pole fell around 19:30 hrs, landing heavily on the building and causing wires to go sparking in the building. “When I looked I saw fire sparking from the roof and my children were in the house. I ran towards them, and the four-year-old boy jumped over the verandah while his sisters ran through the door,” she related nervously.
Neighbours ran to the rescue and began dousing the building, first with water, and later with sand, on being advised of the danger of using water on an electrical fire.
Considerable damage was done to the house, and the occupants were discommoded for the remainder of the evening with sand and water everywhere in the building. But Atesha and Chad are both thanking God for spared lives, and that the building was not engulfed. Long after GPL had left and persons began moving off the scene, the woman and her children remained badly traumatized.
Meanwhile, they lamented having made several complaints to GPL about the condition of the lamp post which was taken over with wood-ants at the base. They said the inside of the post was eaten out by the ants, rendering it hallow.
But fire officials on the scene cautioned that now the pole is down, the pressure on the wires in the entire network at that location has been greatly increased. As a result, there is imminent danger of a greater catastrophe occurring.