Father, 2 children perish as fire guts Charlestown apartment building

Tragedy struck at Drysdale Street Charlestown, Georgetown, at daybreak on Tuesday after a fire ripped through an apartment building, leaving a father and his two young children dead.
The charred remains of 40-year-old Michael Richards and his two children – six-year-old Somaya Richards and four-year-old Supreme Richards were removed from among the debris after the fire was put out.

The Guyana Fire Service (GFS) in a release stated that it received reports of the fire at about 6:45h and immediately, three tenders, one water carrier, two ambulances, and a hydraulic platform from Central, Alberttown, Campbellville, and West Ruimveldt Fire Stations were deployed to the location.
Upon arriving at the scene, the firefighters observed a two-storey wooden and concrete building engulfed in flames and quickly sprang into action.
They managed to contain the blaze to one location but tragically, they could not have saved the man and his two children who were trapped in the inferno.

From the information received, Richards’ body was found close to the door, indicating that he might have been trying to escape while the remains of his two children were found in the bedroom. At the time of the fire, the mother of the children was not at home.
However, at the scene of the deadly fire, Guyana Times was told that several persons who occupied the upper flat of the house had managed to run to safety. One of those persons, Rachel Haynes, believes that the fire might have been electrical in origin.
“[I think so] because of the black smoke and the neighbour downstairs get footage of some wire sparking…,” Haynes said. She was, however, unable to say where specifically she believed the electrical sparks began.
“I was about to press [my clothes] to go to work and them boys come and say the house smoking so that’s how we run out. By the time we run out, the whole house had smoke,” Haynes said.
Though the GFS statement revealed a prompt discharge of service, Haynes said that they took about 20 minutes to arrive on the scene.
“Even before we called them, the whole upstairs didn’t go on fire as yet. It was just smoke coming out,” Haynes said. In addition, Ryan Greenidge, an uncle of the two children explained that he was passing through the area when he observed that the house that his sister rented was on fire.
He stated that he immediately stopped his car and rushed to the scene. By then the fire tenders arrived but their efforts to get into the house proved futile. “I didn’t know what was preventing them from breaking open the door… then the fire get too intense and everyone had to retreat…”
He added that after the fire was put out, his brother-in-law’s body was at the door and the two children were in their room. “Them body burn up bad… you can’t recognise who is who… they burn,” he cried.
He said he had spoken to his sister earlier in the morning, when she informed him that she had to run some errands on the road and would return in a jiffy so that her husband could go to work.
“I don’t know how she would take it… but it will not be good at all…” Greenidge stated.
This fire comes only weeks after the fatal inferno at a home in Mahaica, East Coast Demerara (ECD), which took the lives of a three-year-old girl and her nine-year-old differently-abled sister.
Shameena Hardat, 3, and Animika Hardat, 9, were left unattended in their home after their mother, Bibi Shabeeka Hardat, left to run an errand at Cove and John, ECD, just a few villages away.
The senior Hardat continues to await the GFS report regarding the cause of the deadly fire.
In an interview with this publication, she expressed her hope for the swift release of the investigation’s findings in order to dispel the misconception that her children were playing with matches, as was previously reported by some sections of the media.
Hardat strongly denied the accusations of being a careless mother and emphasised that she had hidden all flammable materials before leaving home on the day of the fire, June 7. (Pooja Rambaran)