Chaguanas apartments partially destroyed by fire

A midday fire partially destroyed, yesterday, a three-storey Chaguanas apartment building which housed ten families and a business. Five tenants, from two families on the top floor, lost all their household items and more than 30 people were displaced. There were no reports of injuries.

Residents said, the fire broke out at about 12.30 pm on the top floor of the building at Penco Street, Montrose. They contacted the Chaguanas Fire Station and officers who responded contained the flames. However, the top storey was destroyed.

The building houses Kenny’s Bar at the ground floor, eight apartments on the second flood and two apartments on the top floor.

None of the tenants on the top floor were at home when the fire started.

Speaking with Newsday at the scene yesterday, tenant Tichell Greaves recalled she was told about the fire while at her in-laws’ home at Edinburgh 500, Chaguanas. She lives with her mother and step-father on the top floor.

“Everything gone. We were planning to move out of there maybe by month-end. We purchased several items like washing machine, stove, tv, fridge to move. The stove and washing were still in plastic. We lost everything. I was living there for about four years,” Greaves said.

She estimated the family lost at least $150,000 worth of household items.

A tenant of the second-floor, Anthony Seepersad, 26, said the crackling sounds of fire had wakened him from sleep. His girlfriend Adanna Francis went to work and he was caring for their two children, four-month-old Melissa and Alissa Seepersad, three.

“I heard the sound of glass breaking and electrical wires started sparking. When I looked, I saw flames. I just grabbed my children and got out. Fire fighters came and out the fire so the place water-soaked right now,” Seepersad said.

An amputee and mother of two, Elizabeth Baptiste, recalled she was downstairs when she smelt smoke. “Same time a man came and shouted, ‘Fire, Fire!’ and people started to get out. While they (fire-officers) were putting out the fire, water came into our apartment. My bed wet so obviously I want a bed.”

Doctors amputated her right leg last May because of diabetes. Her children are aged 18 and 19.