RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

A 68-year-old man trag­i­cal­ly lost his life in a house fire on Sat­ur­day morn­ing in Kel­ly Vil­lage, cen­tral Trinidad.

The vic­tim, iden­ti­fied as Bertil Ram­per­sad, was dis­cov­ered in the charred re­mains of his sin­gle-storey, three-bed­room home on Ray­mond Joseph Road.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the fire start­ed at 4 am and quick­ly en­gulfed the en­tire struc­ture.

Fam­i­ly mem­bers liv­ing near­by, in­clud­ing Ram­per­sad’s nephew, L’Mour Pierre, were awak­ened by loud nois­es and ob­served the house ful­ly en­gulfed in flames.

Emer­gency ser­vices were con­tact­ed and of­fi­cers from the Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion and Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed to the scene.

The fire was con­tained by 4.30 am but by that time, the struc­ture was se­vere­ly dam­aged.

Fire­fight­ers found Ram­per­sad’s body in one of the bed­rooms. He was pro­nounced dead by Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Red­dy. The re­mains were lat­er re­moved by Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home.

The cause of the fire re­mains un­de­ter­mined, as the res­i­dence was not sup­plied with elec­tric­i­ty.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing to as­sess the dam­age and de­ter­mine the cause of the blaze.

Ram­per­sad’s sis­ter, who did not give her name, said her broth­er was asleep at the time of the fire.

“We will know bet­ter from the au­top­sy how he died,” she said.

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact a rel­a­tive at 7761906.