A retired couple from Trinidad and Tobago returned to a devastating scene on Tuesday afternoon, when they found their Tunapuna family home completely overtaken by a sudden blaze, mere 70 minutes after they had left the property to drop their son off for a work trip.
The property, a two-storey concrete structure located at the intersection of Maingot Road and Monroe Road, belongs to 63-year-old Kungebeharry Samlal, a former checker for the Chaguanas Borough Corporation, and his 62-year-old wife Phulmatee Kadoo Samlal, a retired customer service representative with the Water and Sewerage Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (WASA).
Local police received the first emergency call about the fire at approximately 2:30 p.m. Responding officers arrived on scene within minutes to find the entire residential building already engulfed in dense, hot flames. A team of fire fighters, led by Sub Fire Officer Cooseelal, was deployed immediately to tackle the blaze, and after an intensive firefighting operation, they successfully brought the fire under control and extinguished it completely.
A post-fire structural inspection carried out by authorities confirmed that the entire upper floor and roof of the home were completely lost to the fire. The upper level, which held two bedrooms, a private study, and a full bathroom, suffered such severe structural damage that it eventually collapsed onto the ground floor below. The remaining sections of the home also sustained widespread water damage from the thousands of gallons of water used to put out the blaze.
Investigation into the incident have confirmed that the couple left their home at roughly 1:15 p.m. to drive their 28-year-old son to Piarco International Airport for a work-related international trip. The couple’s adult daughter was also not at the property at the time, as she was away at her workplace. A nearby neighbour spotted the fire breaking out, contacted emergency services, and then alerted the Samlal family, who rushed back to their home from the airport area to find firefighters already working to contain the blaze. Miraculously, neither of the retired couple suffered any injuries during the incident, no other residents or first responders were hurt either.