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by JEROME BURDI AND LINDSAY FABER
Lindsay Faber is a staff writer. Jerome Burdi is a freelance writer.
A family of three, flush with recent milestones, died Friday in a fire that ravaged their new home, fire officials said.
Seepersaud Ramkhalawan, 52, and his wife, Maladaye, 45, Trinidadian immigrants set to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary next week, and their daughter, Sarah, 13, died in the 6:50 a.m. blaze that started in their second-floor apartment at 104-15 114th St. in South Richmond Hill, police said.
The Fire Department said candles were the cause.
In addition to the happiness surrounding their upcoming anniversary, which they were to celebrate with a trip to Paris, the family was joyful that Maladaye Ramkhalawan's recent heart bypass surgery had been a success, family members said.
"It's moments like this ... when they're alive, you must try to love them," Maladaye Ramkhalawan's brother-in-law Raymond Gobin, 48, said.
Maladaye Ramkhalawan's brother, Danny Sooknanan, 26, said his sister, who celebrated her 45th birthday last week, had raised him after their mother died of heart problems at age 46.
"Anything I need I ask her for and I'll get it," he said. "I'm trying not to believe it but it's in front of me."
Days ago the family, which was saving money to buy a laundry, moved from their home in Jamaica to the building in South Richmond Hill because one of Maladaye Ramkhalawan's three sisters, Mintra Sooknanan, was the landlord, family members said.
Seepersaud Ramkhalawan worked for four years at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan doing maintenance.
"He was always happy, always smiling," said his supervisor, Gino Bebenista, 29. "He was a person you could always rely on."
A next-door neighbor was the first to notice the fire and rushed to ring doorbells and get people out of the two-story building. Mintra Sooknanan ran upstairs to get the Ramkhalawans, but was overwhelmed by flames when she opened the door to the apartment. She was too upset to talk Friday.
The neighbor said she did whatever she could. "I banged on the door, I said, 'There's a fire upstairs,'" said the neighbor, who did not want her name used. "But the fire was like a big gush."
Another neighbor Sharon, 65, said the fire was coming out the windows but must have snuck up quickly and quietly.
"I didn't hear any sound, I didn't hear anything," said Sharon, who did not want her last name used. "When I saw them taking out the dead bodies, I said, 'Oh my God, I can't believe this.'"
The fire was under control at 7:52 a.m., fire officials said. More than 100 firefighters were at the scene to battle it.
"Everything is over," Gobin said. "I hope to God they are in a better place."
Lindsay Faber is a staff writer. Jerome Burdi is a freelance writer.
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