Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the cir­cum­stances that led to the deaths of two chil­dren af­ter a fire gut­ted a house in Lan­g­ley Park, George­town.

In a state­ment con­firm­ing the deaths of the one-year-old boy and the three-year-old girl, the po­lice did not re­lease in­for­ma­tion about their iden­ti­ties.

Po­lice said fire per­son­nel along with po­lice of­fi­cers, “re­spond­ed swift­ly to the scene to com­bat the blaze and se­cure the area,” adding that no oth­er ca­su­al­ties had been re­port­ed at the time of their state­ment.

“A post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion is ex­pect­ed to be con­duct­ed to de­ter­mine the ex­act cause of death,” the state­ment said as the po­lice ex­tend­ed its “deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and loved ones af­fect­ed by this tragedy.

“In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing, and fur­ther up­dates will be pro­vid­ed as more in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able,” the po­lice said.

One of the oc­cu­pants of the three-bed­room house, where at least six adults and nine chil­dren lived, said the blaze took a long time to be ex­tin­guished. The oc­cu­pant, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said that one of the adults who were at home at the time of the blaze is asth­mat­ic and an­oth­er is “crip­pled”

Peo­ple who re­spond­ed to the fire had asked if all of the chil­dren were evac­u­at­ed and were told that that was the case. How­ev­er, oth­ers said they heard the sound of chil­dren scream­ing in­side as the fire in­ten­si­fied to the point that no one else could en­ter the build­ing safe­ly.

The chil­dren’s bod­ies were lat­er found un­der a burnt-out bed in the bed­room clos­est to the en­trance to the house.

An adult male, be­lieved to be the chil­dren’s great-grand­fa­ther, who was home at the time, is be­ing treat­ed in hos­pi­tal af­ter the fire, re­port­ed­ly for a con­di­tion ag­gra­vat­ed by the fire.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vin­cent, Oct 24, CMC

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