SASCHA WIL­SON

An ear­ly morn­ing fire in Mara­bel­la de­stroyed three build­ings, com­pris­ing eight apart­ments, leav­ing over 30 peo­ple, in­clud­ing chil­dren, home­less.

The fire broke out on John Street some­time af­ter mid­night, jolt­ing res­i­dents and ten­ants out of their sleep.  Most were un­able to save their be­long­ings.

The fire al­so de­stroyed the up­per floor of a four-apart­ment house, in which there were at least 15 ten­ants, in­clud­ing Venezue­lan na­tion­als.

No one was in­jured, but Corey Greene, a fa­ther of sev­en, said his 150 ducks and 35 bullfinch­es per­ished. Greene says they al­so lost their pet par­rot Ri­co. Greene rears and sells the birds for a liv­ing. He lived with his wife and chil­dren in one of the homes which has two apart­ments.

On the same prop­er­ty, owned by his fam­i­ly, is an­oth­er house with two apart­ments in which his fa­ther and sev­er­al oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers and in laws lived.

He said he awoke to the sound of a loud bang.

"I fly up and re­alise I am smelling smoke, and when I look up I see the roof on fire just over the pan­el box. I run out­side and I start to call every­body. I say, ‘Fire! Fire!’, and I run and call my dad. He came out­side and all we could ah do was ba­si­cal­ly take the kids out of the house and the oth­ers out of the house be­cause it hap­pens so quick that we could not do noth­ing. It was a re­al shock," he re­count­ed to Guardian Me­dia.

Greene said the fam­i­ly has no idea where they will be sleep­ing or how to be­gin to pick up the pieces.

"It is a big fam­i­ly, and we need help," he plead­ed.

While the cause of the fire is still be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, he be­lieves it was elec­tri­cal.

Ac­cord­ing to Greene, since last year they have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing low volt­age and made sev­er­al re­ports to T&TEC.

Of­fi­cers of the Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion and the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.