[UPDATED] Tragedy in Beetham Gardens: Girl, 9, killed in fire

THERE was mourning throughout Beetham Gardens on Wednesday after a nine-year-old girl perished in a house fire on Wednesday afternoon.

As the charred remains of Aneilia Butler were placed in a funeral home hearse to be taken to the Forensic Science Centre, loud weeping could be heard from several women who stood on the street and who clearly knew the child and her family.

Also standing nearby, shaking her head in bewilderment was Makeba Mc Intosh who said she remains convinced that had she been at her Sixth Street home at the time of the fire, she could have saved her daughter's life.

“If I was here at the time, I would have saved my child,” Mc Intosh wailed. “Everyone else was saved but my child.”

Newsday was told the fire service was called at around 1.50 pm to Sixth Street, Second Avenue, Beetham Gardens. When they arrived the house was still on fire. Another house to the west of the burning building was also affected.

When fire officers put out the blaze, they were told that a nine-year-old girl was unaccounted for. They checked the house and later found Butler's body in one of the bedrooms.

Mc Intosh, a security worker, told Newsday she was at her workplace on Richmond Street in Port of Spain when she heard of the fire.

A male relative told Newsday he was at home with Butler, an elderly woman and two other children aged six months and ten years. The relative said Butler complained of having a stomach ache so he told her to lie down on a bed. But soon after, the ten-year-old child told the man that she saw smoke coming from a room.

The ten-year-old quickly grabbed the six-month-old baby and ran out of the house. Residents tried to access the bedroom by breaking through a wall at the side of the house. Neighbours also rushed into the house to save the elderly woman who is the grandmother of the man who spoke with Newsday.

It was only the nine-year-old who was not rescued.

At the scene of the fire, the male relative was seen explaining to residents what had happened in the house.

“When I pushed the door to the bedroom there were flames. When I tried to run in, the smoke started to hurt my head. I tried to run for water but it was more smoke. After that it felt like my mind just cut off. I didn’t even know my grandmother was in the house,” he said.

Mc Intosh told Newsday that Butler was a special-needs child who had issues with mobility as well as speaking. She said her daughter lived with her father in Toco, but paid her a visit for the Christmas holidays.

“After Christmas, I asked if she was ready to go back but she said she wanted to stay with me for a while. I was planning to carry her back to her father sometime in March, but then this came and happened. I just can’t believe my child is dead.”

Up to press time, the cause of the fire was not yet known. Both police and TTEC are said to be continuing investigations.

Butler is the fifth person to die in a fire within the space of a week.

On Sunday, 79-year-old Doodooman Sankar and his wife Ramdaye, 84, both died in the living room of their St Julien’s Trace, Princes Town house which caught fire.

Last week Wednesday, during the night and while all of Trinidad was still in the grip of the power outage, sisters Amanda and Alicia Charles, 30 and 31, died in a fire at their Watts Street, Curepe home. Police believe the sisters' home was fire-bombed.

This story has been updated to include additional details. Read original story here:

A nine-year-old girl has died in a house fire at Beetham Gardens on Wednesday.

Newsday was told the fire service was called at around 1.50 pm to Sixth Street, Second Avenue, Beetham Gardens.

When they arrived the house was still on fire. Another house to the west of the burning building was also affected.

When fire officers put out the blaze, they were told that a nine-year-old girl was missing.

They checked and found the girl's body in the middle bedroom of the three-bedroom house.

Fire prevention officers are trying to determine the cause of the fire.