By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: A catholic church of Mawprem Parish was razed to the ground by a devastating fire on Monday.
The raging fire, which started at around 1.30am on Monday, ravaged the wooden-structure of the Church located within the compound of the St. Albert’s Secondary School under Sngithiang locality, Lower Mawprem.
Polices suspect incident could have been caused by an electric short circuit.
However, there was no report of any casualty.
It was learnt that the church was constructed in May, 2002 following the creation of the Mawprem Parish by bifurcating Mawkhar Parish. “Nothing could be saved as the fire engulfed the wooden structure so fast and razed the Church to the ground despite local rescuers made all their good attempts to douse the flames,” a priest of the Mawprem Parish, Fr. Leo Iawbor said.
The fire tenders took some time to reach the spot due to narrow lanes, he said.
Ruling out any foul play, Fr. Iawbor said the estimated loss was around Rs 20 lakh.
It may be mentioned here that the parish consisted of around 4,000 faithful and the last Holy Mass at the church was celebrated at 10 am on Sunday.
Hundreds of people, including Archbishop Dominic Jala, visited the site on Monday.
“The parish will construct a new structure soon”, Fr. Iawbor said.
As a temporary arrangement, Fr. Iawbor said Holy Mass would be celebrated at the school hall located on the same premises.
