A sudden explosion inside a third-floor pub of a three-story commercial plaza in central San Fernando has left one person injured and sent shattered glass and debris cascading onto a busy nearby street, prompting an immediate emergency response and full evacuation of the building. The incident unfolded shortly after 5 p.m. local time yesterday at Skyline Pub, housed within R&M Plaza on High Street, located just steps away from the Penal taxi stand, a popular gathering spot for taxi drivers and traveling commuters during the late afternoon rush. The force of the blast shattered the entire front glass facade of the pub, sending large shards and smaller fragments flying onto the adjacent sidewalk and roadway, and filling the surrounding area with thick plumes of smoke that could be seen from blocks away.
Shiva Ramlal, a tattoo artist whose High Grade Tattoo Studio shares an interior wall with the impacted pub, described the chaotic, terrifying moments immediately after the blast to reporters. Ramlal was mid-way through a tattoo appointment with a client when the explosion hit, and he initially thought the violent shaking was an earthquake. “It felt like a life-and-death situation. I truly thought I was going to die,” Ramlal recalled from the scene on the same day. Miraculously, Ramlal escaped with only a minor scrape on one hand, and he confirmed that no patrons or staff were inside Skyline Pub when the blast occurred. As he rushed to exit the building with his client, Ramlal spotted a small fire burning inside the pub space.
One casualty was reported: a woman who runs a clothing store on one of the plaza’s lower floors was struck by flying shattered glass and suffered a bleeding injury to her ankle before being transported to a local hospital for treatment. Kiran Singh, owner of R&M Plaza and president of the Greater San Fernando Area Chamber of Commerce, clarified that the pub had already closed for regular business hours when the explosion happened, and the blast damage was entirely contained within the Skyline Pub space. “There was damage to the frontal glass of the top floor of the building, and the glass exploded out onto the street,” Singh explained. He added that all other tenants and people inside the plaza itself escaped unharmed, noting the injured woman was standing outside the building when she was hit by flying debris.
Singh confirmed that the building’s fire alarm triggered automatically immediately after the blast, and most tenants had already left the building for the day by the time the incident occurred, reducing the risk of mass casualties. To date, the root cause of the explosion remains undetermined, with Singh noting that building ownership has not been allowed back into the sealed-off premises. “The Fire Service have to do their investigation. We will not know until the Fire Service do their assessment and deem it safe to allow us to re-enter the building,” Singh said. It is also too early to put a monetary estimate on the total damage caused by the blast, he added.
Responders from the San Fernando Police Station and Mon Repos Fire Station arrived on site quickly, cordoned off the building and a section of High Street to secure the area, checked for any ongoing hazards, and oversaw the full evacuation of all remaining people from the plaza. San Fernando Mayor Robert Parris also visited the incident site shortly after the blast, confirming that the San Fernando City Corporation will support building ownership with post-incident cleanup efforts once investigators have completed their work.