Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A Princes Town cou­ple and their two sons are now dis­placed af­ter a fire dam­aged their home on Wednes­day night, caus­ing an es­ti­mat­ed $70,000 in loss­es.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Videll Ram­sa­hai, a fork­lift op­er­a­tor, said he was thank­ful that his wife Heimwant­tie, and their sons, ages 13 and nine, were un­harmed.

Ram­sa­hai was not at home when the fire broke out. The up­per floor of his split-lev­el house, which con­tained three bed­rooms, was de­stroyed.

He said around 8.10 pm, his wife was down­stairs at their Mal­gretoute Main Road home cook­ing, while his old­er son was sleep­ing in their bed­room. His younger son was down­stairs do­ing home­work.

Sud­den­ly, his wife heard a loud ex­plo­sion and ran up­stairs, where she saw their old­er son’s room en­gulfed in flames. Think­ing he was in­side, she be­gan call­ing out to him.

“She run by the room and call­ing for him and when she looked he was not in the room. When he heard the noise we wake up from the front room, which is our room, and walk out and she tell him fire in the room.”

Ram­sa­hai said his son ran down­stairs, grabbed a hose, and be­gan alert­ing neigh­bours, who joined in to help ex­tin­guish the flames. De­spite their ef­forts, the rooms were de­stroyed.

While fire­fight­ers have not yet de­ter­mined the cause of the blaze, Ram­sa­hai sus­pects it could be linked to fluc­tu­at­ing volt­age ear­li­er that day.

Last year, he said, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) re­placed his me­ter af­ter sim­i­lar is­sues, and they had no fur­ther prob­lems.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed T&TEC on the mat­ter and an of­fi­cial said while the Fire Ser­vice de­ter­mines the cause of the fire, a tech­ni­cal team will look in­to the claims.

The fam­i­ly is now stay­ing with rel­a­tives tem­porar­i­ly. Of­fi­cers from the Mon Re­pos Fire Head­quar­ters and Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion vis­it­ed the scene yes­ter­day to con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Any­one wish­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact 338-2752.