What survived the fire
By Thrishantha Nanayakkara It was around 1 am on 9th September 2019. I woke up hearing somebody banging on the door. It took a while to realize what was going on when I heard a faint fire alarm in the corridor. I alerted my wife and woke up my son and daughter. I could see a glare outside the window. It was a real fire in the building. I was in a sarong, but didn’t have the time to get into a jean. Just picked the mobile phone to call the police and ran out. I could see burning debris falling outside the front door, but ran through it. Outside, I could see a shocked community of 23 families from the Richmond house. Fear, despair, uncertainty, and helplessness were shaking us. We walked round to the hill on the other side of the building and watched how police and fire service vehicles were ramming in. Soon it was a long line up of fire trucks. Two firefighters were squirting water into the building. But the fire grew in rage and engulfed one side of the building very fast...