By Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterSURVIVORS OF a fire which gutted two tenement yards at the intersection of Luke Lane and Charles Street in downtown, Kingston, are to get financial assistance within the next two weeks to begin rebuilding their lives.
"They will be getting various emergency food packages. Later on, say within the next two weeks, they will be getting an emergency financial grant," said Duane Solomon, an investigator and social worker working in the Labour and Social Security ministry's public assistance office.
Although he was unable to state definitively how much the survivors would get, Mr. Solomon said that the amount given to each of the reported 17 families which lost possessions may total around $10,000.
The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), the Salvation Army and the Jamaica Red Cross also chipped in with additional items late Monday.
But some of the survivors from Saturday's fire are still suffering despite help from charity organisations and the Government.
"From Sat'day till now...one suit and from morning mi no eat," 65-year-old Roy Carby complained when The Gleaner returned to 117-121 Luke Lane, Monday afternoon.
He lamented that he was forced to spend the night in a "gambling house" and so missed out on the supplies given out Saturday night and Sunday by various aid agencies.
Other fire survivors told tales of having to sleep in old buildings as they gathered round the nearby board barbershop, which was badly singed but for the most part, undamaged.
Barber, Leon Grange, was back to the business of cutting hair, side stepping the borrowed mattresses and donated clothes which turned sections of the small dwelling into a makeshift dormitory.
Next door, one child, seven-year-old Mark Brown, clutched a surviving puppy, the only one of the litter of five, which were not burnt to death when an electrical short circuit started the fire.
Other children played among the blackened ruins of the four houses and seven shacks, still littered with the shells of melted cutlery, figurine shards, shattered shoes and tools and rubble from collapsed homes.
While adults warned them to stay away from the unstable buildings, the children, guided by the excited shout of one of their friends who had made a $20 find, turned their misfortune into an informal treasure hunt. As more blackened coins surfaced, the children squealed and one enthusiastically suggested that the coins would be good as new, once cleaned with kerosene.
Other residents, though, were giving thanks that lives had been spared, as did another family in the upscale neighbourhood of Cherry Gardens, St. Andrew.
They lost the entire second floor of their two storey 12 apartment building to fire on Sunday night.
It is not clear what started the fire and though there were reports that it may have been started by children playing with fire crackers, owner, medical practitioner, Dr. Paul Robinson later denied this, stating that it was unclear how the fire started.
The police as well as Dr. Robinson reported damage at $43.1 million and said that the building, located on Sunset Avenue, was insured.
Dr. Robinson explained yesterday that his two children and five of their relatives were playing upstairs and one of the children later made an alarm when fire was seen coming from one of the bedrooms on the second floor. The fire quickly spread to other parts of the building and the fire department was summoned. Four units from three fire stations responded to the call. This was confirmed by the police.
Dr. Robinson said that he had arrived at the $40 million estimate based on the loss of state of the art equipment such as computers, component sets and at least six cellular phones.
