Fire Victim Cries for Help
Madam Ophelia Karr
Ophelia Karr and others are victims of fire disasters in recent days. Their family residence in the LBS Community in Paynesville drew a huge crowd on August 9, 2021, when the building hosting them gutted fire leaving everything therein destroyed. Thankfully, there was no death reported among the ten occupants of the house.
However, Ophelia and the rest of her families are left devastated as everything they had including money was left in the fire, and against this backdrop, she is seeking help from the government and philanthropists to relieve them of the distress.
“We now sleep in the living room of our neighbor’s house and the area cannot host us. We need zinc now to build a place where we can live, and I am appealing to the government and others to come to our aid,” said Ophelia.
Seeing the fire on the house at 8 p.m. on Sunday was a surprise to Ophelia and her family as they cannot remember anyone lighting a fire in the house that evening. Moreover, they do not have electricity that the fire disaster could be attributed to; something that leaves them with the mystery of the source of the fire.
“But we did not make a fire in the house. I had not even put fish on the dryer when the fire started blazing in the house. Upon seeing it, I called for help, but it was fast till before people could come the whole house had burned down”.She said.
According to her, two rooms were occupied by tenants while she and her children stayed in the other three rooms. “The house belongs to me, but people were renting two rooms. We don’t know what caused the fire. We only saw the fire coming up and I was at the back of the house cooking. We don’t have electricity. There are 22 people in the house.”
Counting on the losses sustained, Madam Karr explained that she had money for people in the house, but all left in the fire.”My husband had $67,000LD as susu money for people. I had L$37.000 saved as my business money and all burned in the fire.”
“I had 4 barrels of clothes, my children’s things, and six mattresses. My daughter had two bundles of zinc. I want people to help me with zinc and cement and a place for the tenants to sleep. We need help from people now as there is nowhere for us to go,” Ophelia lamented.