Cause for Dehiwala deaths ... Carbon dioxide gas poisoning!

Cause for Dehiwala deaths ... Carbon dioxide gas poisoning!

... Electric oven went in flames when it was voluntarily activated when power came on at 10 in the night?

What has been revealed from investigations launched on the deaths of the mother, father and the daughter in addition to the relative daughter who had died mysteriously inside a three-storied

house situated along Kawdana Road, Dehiwala is that all of them had died because of Carbon Monoxide gas poisoning.  Such a gas may have been created within the house as a result of a part of the pantry cupboard and plastic items catching fire.

All window-lintels in this house had been sealed from within where an air-conditioner had been fixed. It is learned that at moment the fire had occured and the poisonous gas had leaked out, the air-conditioner may have started functioning. However an enquiry is still going on to establish whether what has caused the pantry cupboard to go up in flames because of the hotplate catching fire or else because of the mobile phone charger which had been fixed to a power-plug close to the pantry. According to the cycle of power-cut in operation these days, suspension of electricity supply to Kawdana Road area is between 8 - 10 in the night and at the moment when power was suspended the hot plate was on and the householders may have forgotten about it and it had begun to function voluntarily.

Whatever it is, what those living on the top floors had said was that those living on ground floors had managed to secure current with the aid of a generator during the period of the power-cut. However they had not inquired whether they had done so on the night of the day of this incident. It has been revealed at investigations that though there had been a hot plate in this house there was no damage to it or any connection where the poisonous gas involved.

Those who had died from the incident are the owner of the house Hussein Moulana (65), wife Murshida Moulana (52), daughter Hupna Moulana (13) and relative daughter Misna Moulana (13). The owner of the house is a prominent businessman who owns an electrical shop down First Cross Street, Pettah and has even practised as an author. Mr. Ali Zaneer Moulana, a Member of Parliament and former Governor of Western Province, Mr. Alavi Moulana and Organiser of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna of the Southern Province, Mr. Uzei Moulana and relations of the deceased had hastened to the spot of the tragedy of their relative brother the moment they heard about this incident.

The two deceased daughters were studying in a private school in Narahenpita in Grade 9 while the relative daughter was a resident of Prathibimbarama area in Kalubowila. She had been at times spending the nights in this manner in this house and had set off to school the following day, it was understood. The tragedy has in fact occured in the night towards dawn day-before-yesterday and nobody had been aware of it. This house had comprised of three floors and a Maldivian family had been living on the topmost floor and it was reported that this businessman had lived in the second and third floors. (It was earlier mistakenly reported that some workers had lodged on the top floor and about a Bangla Desh family).

Though the school van had arrived in the morning to collect the daughter and since nobody had come out even after tooting the horn, on suspicion the driver had contacted the businessman to which too there had been no response and therefore the driver told an associate of the businessman's work-place, asking him to check about this. The associate had then called at this house and on inquiring he had found that there was no sign of anybody in the house and had therefore become suspicious. He had then with the aid of neighbours made a key to the door and had opened the door only to see this tragedy. Later people in the area had taken steps to inform Dehiwala Police about this.

The police were then able to find the body of the father with burnt injuries lying on a chair, the bodies of the two girls in the hall and the mother's body lying inside a room. The police who conducted enquiries were able to understand that the pantry cupboard in the kitchen and the hot plate had caught fire and that the entire house had been enveloped with smoke. It was detected in that instance that two breakers in the switch-box were in a pressed downward position and that electricity was disconnected across it.

Under these circumstances it is suspected that when the householders were asleep in the night a a fire had broken out in the kitchen which in turn created a poisonous gas that had spread across the entire house. It is suspected that in order to escape this situation in the process they had been rendered unconscious which then resulted in their deaths. It was understood that an attempt had been made to open the front door and that the attempt had been futile. It was also observed that they had used an effort to reach for the keys hung at a close location to the kitchen where the hot plate and the telephone charger which went up in flames had then caused the poisonous gas. It was further learned that all of them would have breathed their last because of breathing the excessive poisonous gas that resulted since the house was air-conditioned and all doors were closed.

Previous articles on the incident:
Was a gas-leak the cause of the deaths?
4 dead bodies of members of same family found!