Chinese nationals who died in Vreed-en-Hoop fire identified as cousins
The Chinese nationals whose charred remains were found after fire gutted three buildings along the Vreed-en-Hoop, West Bank Demerara Public Road on Sunday morning have been identified as cousins.
Dead are Qui Chong Qing, 45, and Qiu Yu Qing, 53.
Divisional Commander Linden Lord yesterday told Stabroek News that the dead men were identified by a relative on Sunday, hours after the fire.
The two men rented one of the buildings from which they operated a business—Wishful Supermarket.
Stabroek News was told that they began to manage the recently opened supermarket following the death of one of their relatives.
Lord explained that when he visited the scene on Sunday morning, he learnt that it was believed that the men were trapped in the building. The building had a shutter door, which was the only means to enter or exit.
“…I was (of the belief) that those men were trapped in the building. So I told the fire people, I am not leaving the scene until they properly comb the debris,” Lord said.
He added that after searching a section of the building for about an hour and a half, the charred remains of the men were found. “….After combing about an hour and half, on the north western side of the buttom flat, these two burnt charred remains, which I identified as two human charred remains, were found,” he noted.
In addition to the lives lost, the fire, which occurred around 1.30 am on Sunday, has left at least 22 persons jobless and business owners counting millions of dollars in losses.
Businesses housed in the buildings include a Chinese restaurant, a book store, a phone store, clothing stores and the supermarket.
When Stabroek News visited the scene yesterday, some business owners had returned to get another glimpse of what was left.
Many were yet to estimate their losses and decide on what to do.
The owner of Fazeela and Daughters Fashion, a clothing store that was also destroyed, was seen seated at her sister’s nearby business.
She told Stabroek News that the building that housed her business was not insured. “We go fah insure the place but the building old and the amount ah money wah they did want, me been can’t give them,” the woman said.
Just three weeks ago, she explained, she opened another business into which she poured all of her savings. “The next business wah me open is only three weeks now. So the money wah me had from this business and the savings, me put it into that one,” she stressed.
The woman said that apart from the clothing, she also had appliances, such as a television, refrigerator, camera and generator, stored in a bond in the building.
Fire Chief Marlon Gentle had previously told Stabroek News that firefighters had to exercise caution as they responded to the fire that engulfed the buildings, which were over 100 years old.
He related that the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) received word of the fire at around 1:55 am but by the time the first fire engine got to the scene, the supermarket where the two dead persons lived had already been totally engulfed and loud explosions were heard even as the flames had already spread to the second building where the restaurant was located.
“The supermarket was already gone and the fire had already spread to the restaurant…there were explosions, we suspected from propane gas tanks, and some amount of caution in the distribution of water had to be had. We also had to ensure the safety of the men also. The power went out in the area and we were not sure of the situation because applying water to electricity was another hazard, and we know in that high tension area, we had to be very practical. [There were also] significant threats to other buildings such as the regional building and we were worried about the fire jumping the street,” Gentle had explained.
“You also had 50-feet high flames because we are dealing with the high winds from the Demerara River and Atlantic [Ocean] junction. You could have seen this fire from the East Coast and we had units calling from Ogle to find out. While there are concerns as to the response, we had to take (precautionary) measures and to also ensure the safety of the firefighters. There were so many different risks that we had to be very cautious,” he added.
The GFS, according to Gentle, gained control of the blaze after about 45 minutes and had extinguished it about one and a half hours after first responding.
He said that the two victims were found in the rear of the lower flat of the building and it appears that they were either trapped downstairs or perished upstairs and the bodies fell downstairs when the building collapsed.
Preliminary investigations, Gentle had said, point to the fire likely having started because of an electrical problem in the supermarket.
“We suspect that it started by some freezers and some electrical coolers. We understand that yesterday [Saturday], the owner and someone came to fix it. It is in that same area that all evidence shows that [the fire] started there,” Gentle had said.