Even as they tried to pick up their lives fol­low­ing last week’s floods, a Wood­land fam­i­ly is now home­less af­ter a fire rav­aged their home yes­ter­day, leav­ing them with noth­ing but the clothes on their backs.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Er­rol Sookhans­ingh said no one was at home when the fire start­ed short­ly be­fore 8 am.

He said his wife Vidya usu­al­ly goes to care for her el­der­ly par­ents in Pe­nal, so af­ter drop­ping her off, he went to the mar­ket to buy some veg­eta­bles.

His son Do­minic, 17, a stu­dent of Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege was study­ing at his grand­par­ents’ home while the el­der son Nathan had gone to work at a near­by phar­ma­cy.

Sookhans­ingh said just as he ar­rived at the mar­ket around 7.45 am, his broth­er called to say the house was en­gulfed. Neigh­bours re­port­ed­ly saw sparks on the roof fol­low­ing which elec­tri­cal wires fell to the ground spit­ting sparks.

Un­able to ex­tin­guish the flames, the neigh­bours called the Fire Ser­vice as the flames spread quick­ly. With­in a few min­utes, the con­crete two-bed­room house be­came en­gulfed.

Sookhans­ingh said the house had elec­tric­i­ty but he was un­cer­tain as to what caused the fire.

“It is re­al­ly hard to lose every­thing. We are stay­ing now at my in-laws at Su­chit Trace for a few days but we are re­al­ly ask­ing for help be­cause we have lost every­thing,” he added.

He said the fire oc­curred days af­ter the floods in their com­mu­ni­ty sub­sided.

“The floods were ter­ri­ble but this was worse,” he added.

Sookhans­ingh said he was not in the best of health as he suf­fered from arthri­tis which made it dif­fi­cult for him to walk or stand for long pe­ri­ods.

Mean­while, the coun­cil­lor for Av­o­cat/San Fran­cique Dood­nath Mayrhoo called on the pub­lic to help the fam­i­ly. Mayrhoo said he was dis­trib­ut­ing clean­ing sup­plies in the con­stituen­cy around 7.30 am when he saw smoke com­ing from the house. When he ar­rived the en­tire house was ablaze.

“I con­tact­ed the Fire de­part­ment and T&TEC who re­spond­ed prompt­ly. There was a T&TEC line that was spit­ting fire and mak­ing loud ex­plo­sions,” Mayrhoo said.

He called on the pub­lic to lend sup­port to the fam­i­ly and to help them re­build their home.

“To lose every­thing ex­cept the clothes on your back is dev­as­tat­ing and I am call­ing on peo­ple to lend a hand to as­sist this fam­i­ly to re­build their home. They have lost every­thing and it is as if they have lost hope too,” he added.

He said gro­ceries will be pro­vid­ed to the fam­i­ly but he called on sur­round­ing busi­ness own­ers to con­tribute some build­ing ma­te­ri­als to­wards as­sist­ing the fam­i­ly.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist can call Sookhans­ingh at 318-1183 or 346- 7392.

Wood­land res­i­dents have been hard hit by floods over the past fort­night. In some ar­eas, the drains are still flood­ed.--Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va