By Trudy Simpson,
Staff Reporter
THE KINGSTON and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) is to step up its audit of derelict buildings in the Corporate Area after two boys were crushed to death by a collapsing wall at 63 Wildman Street on Sunday.Huge chunks of a brick wall fell on the two boys, seven-year-old Junior Kennedy and 17-month-old Davar Brown, as they played with their toys.
City Treasurer, Lincoln Evans, said yesterday that the KSAC would be speeding up its identification of buildings which needed to be demolished, repaired or declared dangerous.
The audit, which was started in 1997, has identified more than 500 buildings but Mr. Evans said that the first stage of responsibility rested with the owners. The KSAC is therefore trying to locate the owners of the old Jamaica Success Club, which houses the Success Basic School and the tenement houses where Sunday's tragedy occurred. The last transfer of title was in October 1959 to three owners: Edward Fletcher Cope, Herman Wylie Alford and Margaret Beatrice Duncan.
Mr. Evans, Mr. Tex Innerarity and the Parish Disaster Co-ordinator, Isaac Nugent, visited Wildman Street yesterday and discovered that the brick wall, part of an abandoned kitchen, was made with wooden beams, which had become termite infested.
"It's a wall that has been practically standing on its own. The wall is well away from the school building so there isn't anything else in that immediate area that is of any impending danger to anyone," he said.
But he was unable to give a guarantee on whether the old building housing the Success Basic School was safe. The school remained closed yesterday, in mourning for the children who died. "The City Engineer would really have to look at that," said Mr. Evans.
When The Gleaner revisited Wildman Street yesterday, the tenement where the children lived was quiet until the silence was broken by the sobs of 64-year-old Mavis Rhule, who was reliving the tragic moment when the two young boys lost their lives. She lived on the same premises as the boys and often "gave an eye on them", according to neighbours.
Patricia Hall, Davar's mother, had left the area to visit her mother and Nora Kennedy, Junior's mother, was still too overcome to speak. However, the seven-year-old's stepfather, Oral McNab, aired his grief. "I feel nuff mourning cause it rough," he said. Davar's uncle, Ronald Brown, stood nearby, his eyes red from suppressed tears.
They were also concerned about the school, pointing out huge cracks in the walls of the basic school's building. "Look there, if a good earthquake shake it, it going to collapse," said Mr. McNab.
The boys' relatives said they would have a hard time burying them and that there had been no offers yet to help bury the youngsters. "Funeral is the biggest t'ing deh now because no money no deh," said Mr. Brown. "Most like it coming on to Christmas now," added Mr. McNab.
