Sun | Dec 7, 2025

Death and despair

Published:Friday | October 1, 2010 | 12:00 AM
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Shian Henry (left) and her nephew Damani Boyd look out from their house on River Bank, Thompson Pen, St Catherine. The flooding in the yard was caused when the Rio Cobre overflowed its banks. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
Marine police process a scene near the Michael Manley Boulevard, Kingston, after a body was found in the Kingston Harbour yesterday. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
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AS IF SHE were an angel of death, rains associated with the tropical system Nicole has left several families in Jamaica mourning and others desperately searching for loved ones.


The death toll from the heavy rains which have been lashing the island since Tuesday climbed to eight yesterday after six more people were killed in separate incidents in St Andrew and St Catherine.


Another 16 persons have been reported missing and are feared dead.


Listed among the dead are three men who were crushed to death in Norbrook Heights, St Andrew, and two men, believed to be of unsound mind, who were washed away by strong currents in Havendale, St Andrew.


A five-year-old girl also died in in Christian Pen, St Catherine, after a tree fell on her house, forced inside and killed her in bed.


The victims of the Norbrook Heights incident are Anthony Parnell, Denzel Malcolm and his nephew, Ryan Malcolm.


The two other male victims have not been identified.


Ryan Malcolm, Denzel Malcolm and Parnell were killed when a section of a retaining wall they constructed several months ago collapsed on to a shed made from ply board and zinc while they slept inside.


The shed was built as a sleeping area for the men, who were reportedly contracted to build a five-storey house at the Rainbow Crescent premises.


Police Commissioner Owen Ellington visited the scene, but declined to say much insisting that the investigation is still in the preliminary stages.


Parnell's daughter, Leonie Parnell-Campbell, was still in disbelief as she waited for rescue teams from the Jamaica Fire Brigade Training Division to retrieve his body.


"A di first person me ever have so close to me weh lose dem life so," Parnell-Campbell said amid tears.


"What hurt the most is this is not a contract work, so no benefits is there," she told The Gleaner.


Meanwhile, residents in Havendale, St Andrew, reported that two men believed to be of unsound mind were swept away by waist-high water along Riverside Drive on Wednesday night.


Their bodies were retrieved from a drain at the intersection of Riverside and Highland drives yesterday.


The St Andrew North police confirmed the incident, but said they have not been identified.


A teenage boy from the Sandy Park area of St Andrew and a 68-year-old farmer from Flagaman district in St Elizabeth were found dead Tuesday morning, hours after Nicole began unleashing her fury on the island.