An abandoned building that has been a dwelling space for many of the homeless, was gutted by fire this afternoon.
Fire officials responding to the distress call on Bridge Street in Castries, met the old, dilapidated building fully engulfed in flames.
A video, received by our news desk, shows scores of curious onlookers, hardly practicing social distancing, inquisitively attempting to catch a glimpse of the burning structure as firefighters from the Royal Saint Lucia Fire Service worked feverishly to extinguish the blaze.
In the end, the battle against the fire was won, with no reports of any injuries or fatalities and little damage to buildings and business places nearby; most notably Du Boulay’s Bottling Company and the Police Credit Union.
Why such a building so close to other businesses, known to be vacant and derelict
and I suppose for quite sometime, known also to be used as a dwelling place for the homeless,
be allowed to deteriorate whereby, being vulnerable to end in such a dangerous way as this.
Evidently the owners of this property may have abandoned it for reasons unknown, but obvious.
This is not the first case in Castries – it is disturbing to me how fires in a Castries with a poor
history of fire fighting – do allow old derelict buildings to function without oversight. The City
obviously have not been collecting any Tax, so why not appropriate such buildings and to use
them for the poor and homeless under proper and strict supervision, visited by medical staff regularly.