SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Fire gut­ted the east­ern wing of the Char­lieville Pres­by­ter­ian School yes­ter­day. Fire of­fi­cers on the scene said the blaze start­ed around 1pm, and by the time fire ap­pli­ances ar­rived, the build­ing, which had housed 90 stu­dents from the stan­dards three, four and five class­es had been to­tal­ly de­stroyed.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh, who ar­rived short­ly af­ter, said arrange­ments had been made with the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul-Ja­maat (AS­JA) to use the au­di­to­ri­um of the near­by AS­JA Girls Col­lege tem­porar­i­ly to house the stu­dents who were dis­placed.He said he had al­so spo­ken with the prin­ci­pal, who had as­sured that SEA ex­am ma­te­r­i­al for the Stan­dards 4 and 5 class­es was not dam­aged. Gopeesingh said as soon as the fire ser­vices gave the go-ahead, the struc­ture would be de­mol­ished and a new one put up.

Ch­agua­nas may­or Gopaul Bood­han and Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er al­so vis­it­ed. Bood­han pledged the sup­port of the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion.