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Granny 88, perishes in fire
By Leon Suseran
Tragedy befell two elderly sisters last evening when a fire destroyed a two-storey house at Islington, East Bank Berbice, burning one of them to death.
93-year- old Olive London survived and lived to tell about it!
Up to press time last evening, firefighters were searching feverishly with flashlights and forks for the charred remains of 88-year-old Margaret London. The bed-ridden woman stricken with a stroke lived in the house from birth with her sister, Olive London, 93. The house had electricity. No cause of the blaze has been given thus far.
Two fire tenders were deployed to the scene. Both of them accessed water from the nearby Berbice River, but the building had already been reduced to ashes by the time they arrived. Eyewitnesses stated that the fire which started some time after 19:00 hrs, devoured the wooden structure within minutes. The NexGen Internet Café located next door was saved from the inferno.
Kaieteur News found the survivor, Olive, sitting in a nearby shop, still shaken from the fire and of course, losing her younger sister, for whom she cared up to last evening. She told this newspaper that she had prepared a cup of hot tea for her sister and was about to take it to her bedroom, but smelled smoke “and felt heat” coming from the back of the building, where her sister’s bedroom was located.
“I feel the heat and the front was catching fire!” Everything was lost in the blaze, including pictures of the dead woman.
London stated that she realized that there was nothing much she could have done to save her sister, so she immediately escaped through the front door of the house, with a “heavy heart.” But she had second thoughts and wanted to go back.
Villagers who rushed to the woman’s aid as she made her way down the steps tried to hold her back from going into the burning building. “I tell them to loose me to go [look] for my sister!” London lamented.
Kaieteur News was informed that neither of the women is married or have children. The survivor has a brother in Georgetown. Meantime, the local church members of the Overwinning Bible Church have taken up the mantle to ensure that London has a place to rest and food to eat.
Margaret had celebrated her birthday on Sunday.
Firefighters soaking the charred house last evening.
Up to press time, firefighters were still searching feverishly for the woman’s charred remains. Officer-in-Charge of Fire in Berbice, Supt. Compton Sparman, was among those on the scene.
Berbicians would recall in 2011 when 52-year-old Hazel was burnt to death in her Lot 30 Stanleytown, New Amsterdam home. Johnson was visually impaired.
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