Fire destroys Tuschen Housing Scheme property

Jul 18, 2013 News

-family of four homeless

A family of four was yesterday rendered homeless after their two-storey, three-bedroom Lot 2253 Tuschen Housing Scheme home was destroyed by fire at around 11:15hrs.

Ganesh Persaud with his wife and two children.

Owner of the house, a furniture maker and supplier, Ganesh Persaud also known as Amar, told this newspaper that one of his employees was in the lower flat of the building which housed a furniture workshop, when he noticed thick smoke emanating from the wooden upper flat.
The man reportedly rushed across the street to a neighbour’s house for assistance. The Fire Service was then summoned, but by the time a fire tender arrived, the wooden upper flat was completely burnt, while the lower concrete flat was gutted by the fire.
“This was a fully furnished house. It had everything; TV, microwave, stereo set… all my savings working to extend this house and better my family. But today I have nothing,” Persaud lamented.
The father of two calculated his losses as being in excess of seven million dollars. The family moved into the house in 2007, when it was a mere one bedroom.
“This was a li’l, li’l house, and we work day and night, hard, hard, and we build it up. Now today everything I worked for turn to ashes now. We have no clothes, documents, money…we nah have nothing left,” the distressed man said.
He added that a shed which was detached from the house and a workshop attached to its lower flat that contained woodworking machineries, were the only parts of the house that did not get burnt to the ground.
However, the machines suffered water damages as a result of efforts to extinguish the fire. The cause of the fire is yet to be determined.
Investigations by the Guyana Fire Service are continuing.