Fire-affected vendors demanding
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, February 8
Over 1000 vendors of the Children’s World trading centre whose properties were burnt during January 30's fire addressed the Prime Minister, the Chief Prosecutor and the Public Defender with a list of demands.
The vendors demand:
1. To allow them to attend the dismantlement process of the burnt trade center and afterwards participate in the cleaning process in order to prevent possible theft of their property.
2. To timely launch investigative activities in order to reveal the real causes of the fire and punish those guilty.
3. The loss should be timely calculated and state should compensate the loss as much as possible.
4. The government should ask the National Bank of Georgia to mediate with commercial banks and credit organizations with regard to granting some financial relieve to the fire-affected vendors.
5. Tbilisi Mayor’s Office should find alternative trade spaces for the victims in order to allow them continue their business.
The vendors are currently gathered at the trade center and ask the permission to enter and try and recover some of their property.
The Emergency Management Service and experts have claimed that the building is in that condition that it may collapse any time.
However, the rescue teams and police still allowed several vendors who had gold and jewelry shops to enter the burnt building in order to open their safety-deposit boxes and take any belongings which survived the fire.
Children’s World, its adjacent shops and a market also were burnt during the fire, which broke out at the territory early morning on January 30 and left over 1000 vendors without incomes.
Around 30 fire brigades were trying to extinguish the fire for six hours, which damaged the building construction and left one firefighter with light injuries.
Only the building was insured, and its owners will receive proper compensation as they say the building was insured for 6 million GEL couple of month ago. However, the properties of the affected vendors were not insured, and so the traders received a huge loss from the disaster.
The cause of the fire is unknown as of jet. The police have launched an investigation under the article 187of criminal code, which means the destruction of another persons’ property, causing devastating result.
