A fire broke out at the St Benedict's College, La Romaine, San Fernando on Wednesday prompting hundreds of students and staff to be evacuated.
On site, our reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh spoke with the acting Chief Assistant Fire Officer, who says preliminary investigations suggest the fire was not accidental.
00:00A fire erupted within the auditorium and adjoining drama classroom of St.
00:09Benedict's College La Romaine this afternoon. A mass evacuation of students
00:15and staff to the nearby St. Benedict's Roman Catholic Church compound
00:19immediately followed. School closed for the day. Parents were told their children
00:24were safe and can be picked up at the church with no classes tomorrow to
00:29facilitate air quality testing. On Wednesday the fire service was called
00:36out and quickly dispatched. Acting Assistant Chief Fire Officer Rampasad
00:40confirms. We received the distress call at 12.25 hours. Major appliances from the
00:47division headquarters responded. On arrival we observed fire and smoke emanating
00:54from a structure to the rear of the compound. The blaze was subsequently
00:58extinguished with no injuries reported. However there was loss of school equipment.
01:03There were no damage to the superstructure in itself. The fire was confined to the auditorium
01:10which is really used as an assembly point for morning assembly and in particular I think
01:17there was a big classroom there for the drama room. The damage was confined to the stage which
01:24was made of a B-class construction just mostly wood and the drama room where they housed there all the other
01:31paraphernalia that would have been destroyed by the fire. When asked whether or not the fire was deliberately set the assistant fire chief said a more thorough investigation has to be done by the fire prevention department.
01:44However, preliminary investigation is trending towards non-accidental, not accidental. That's the terminology that we would
01:56prefer to use at this time pending a further and more thorough investigation to come to our cause determination.
02:02We contacted the Minister of Education Michael Daulat on the situation but did not receive a response.
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