Neighbours raise money for fire victim
Last week, in the midst of chronicling the wrath of Hurricane Iris, we paused to report on the devastation suffered by a Belize City family when their house burned down. Tonight Jacqueline Woods has a follow up.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
On Monday the Mahler family lost their house and household possessions after a fire gutted their three bedroom concrete bungalow. Since then, the family has been staying with relatives and trying to recover from their loss.
Today workmen started taking down the house as the family was advised that the house was beyond repair and it would not be safe to occupy. But amidst the destruction, there was some good news for the Mahler family. Residents of the area came together and on the weekend held a barbecue sale. As a result, the family received a donation of two thousand, three hundred and twenty-eight dollars.
Orlando Pelayo, Resident, Lizarraga Avenue
“She had no insurance and she lost everything. That was very sad to us, the close neighbourhood.”
The family also received a cheque for five hundred dollars given by Florence Wills on behalf of area representative, Jorge Espat.
Karl Mahler, Fire Victim
“It will be helping us to get together back this house. Everything has been lost and that will help us to get back.”
It is still not known what started the blaze, although fire officials suspect it may have been started by something that was left burning on a sofa in the living room. However, the Mahlers’ and their neighbours believe the fire was started by a couple of faulty transformers they claim have been giving problems for past six months.
Orlando Pelayo
“The matter got worse, I would say about two months ago. I called in, I complained over and over. The neighbourhood called in and they complained. The family that lived directly beside this transformer, their television burnt up, my two medical machines got burnt up, my refrigerator, my two computers.”
Ethel Mahler, Fire Victim
“Sometimes the poles would go off and lights would go off in the house. What I see, to me it’s up on the roof that it started.”
The residents say they have reported the matter to Belize Electricity Limited, but to no avail. They report that if nothing is done to correct the problem they will have no choice but to stage a demonstration. Reporting for News 5, Jacqueline Woods.
BEL head of Customer Services, Mike Polonio, this evening told News 5 that he respects the report of the Fire Department, which ruled out electrical problems as the source of the fire. He did say that there are two transformers in the immediate vicinity, one which serves Mahler and the other serving Pelayo. While Pelayo’s transformer did suffer a broken lead–which was repaired–Polonio says that his company has received no complaints about the transformer connected to the Mahler residence. Pelayo has a large damage claim pending against BEL, which is now under investigation.
