RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

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A fire in­side the Mon Re­pos Fire head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do last evening has tem­porar­i­ly left the sta­tion with­out elec­tric­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the elec­tri­cal me­ter which mea­sures the amount of en­er­gy con­sumed by the sta­tion caught fire around 6.30 pm.

A source said the fire was quick­ly brought un­der con­trol and of­fi­cials of T&TEC lat­er took away the me­ter.

Up to this morn­ing, the build­ing re­mained with­out elec­tric­i­ty. A gen­er­a­tor was brought in to pow­er the lights but the wa­ter pumps, air con­di­tion­ing and oth­er ap­pli­ances were in­op­er­a­ble.

A se­nior fire of­fi­cial said two weeks ago, the Elec­tri­cal In­spec­torate de­clared the wiring un­safe and gave the T&T Fire Ser­vice 14 days to rec­ti­fy the prob­lems.

"The point of en­trance ca­ble was changed, as well as the me­ter base. The In­spec­torate checked it and failed it. They were giv­en some more time to do fur­ther work and then this fire oc­curred," the of­fi­cial said.

The build­ing is usu­al­ly oc­cu­pied by al­most 100 peo­ple dur­ing the day and 30-plus at nights.

Of­fi­cers said the elec­tri­cal wiring on the 70-year-old build­ing must be done soon to pre­vent any fur­ther fire mishaps.