Kevon Felmine

Two work­ers from Trinidad Con­trac­tors Ltd were in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day af­ter­noon af­ter they were se­vere­ly burned in an ex­plo­sion at the Clax­ton Bay port yes­ter­day.Re­ports are that 40-year-old Videsh Mo­hess, of St Croix Road, Princes Town, suf­fered 90 per cent burns, while his col­league John Lam­bert, 50, had 50 per cent burns.Up to late yes­ter­day, both men were ward­ed at the Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal at Petrotrin, Pointe-a-Pierre. A third man was ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion with mi­nor burns.

Po­lice said around 1.15 pm, the men were do­ing main­te­nance work at the port at World Wide Equip­ment Caribbean Ltd (WWE­CL) off the South­ern Main Road, St Mar­garet's Vil­lage when the fire broke out.A work­er who wit­nessed the ac­ci­dent from an­oth­er ves­sel said he heard an ex­plo­sion and saw thick black smoke com­ing from the boat, which was docked at the port.

"I saw two guys run­ning out from the stern of the boat," he said. "As I looked to the front, one guy came out from the wheel­house, com­plete­ly on fire. He was run­ning back and forth, and an­oth­er guy came out with an ex­tin­guish­er and ex­tin­guished him."When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the scene at 3.30 pm, am­bu­lances had al­ready tak­en the men to hos­pi­tal and fire­fight­ers were still try­ing to get the fire un­der con­trol.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, an at­ten­dant at Trinidad Con­trac­tors Ltd pro­vid­ed a num­ber for an­oth­er of­fice, but calls to that of­fice were unan­swered.