A fire last evening destroyed a dormitory and damaged two others at the Glenhope Place of Safety on Maxfield Avenue in Kingston, triggering chaos among caregivers worried about the safety of the home’s 72 girls, and a number of infants.

No one was seriously injured in the blaze. However, four wards were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation, Emilio Ebanks, the Jamaica Fire Brigade spokesman, told the Observer.

Ebanks said that all the children, except for one infant, had been accounted for. The missing child, he said, was not from any of the three affected dormitories.

But an angry crowd that had gathered at the gate to the home challenged Ebanks’s claim.

“A lie dem a tell. A whole heap a pickney run gone,” said one woman. “About five girl gone with babies in dem hands.”

The woman said she carried nine children and two teenaged girls to a nearby school during the fire and they were later collected by the house mother.

Another woman also told the Observer that 40 girls, some carrying babies, ran from the premises when the gate was opened to let in the fire truck from the Half-Way-Tree Fire Station.

Several other persons relayed a similar story which was corroborated by nurse Collette Edwards, who was seen entering the premises with two babies.

“I was on my way to work when I stopped and took the babies from the girls down Denham Town,” she told the Observer. “I know the babies, so when I drove up on Christopher Road and I saw the girls with the babies I took them, because I can’t let them take the babies. It’s the teenagers’ babies,” she said.

Her reference was to teenaged mothers who are living at Glenhope.

Edwards said she questioned the girls from whom she took the babies and they told her that there was a fire at the facility before running off.

“There were lots of girls in different groups,” she said.

An administrator from the home also told the Observer that they were contacted by the Denham Town police who reported that they had about three babies in their care.

The fire attracted an angry and noisy crowd which was prevented from entering the home as firemen fought the blaze.

Police and other vehicles were seen entering and leaving the premises at regular intervals while caregivers ran around searching for the babies. A ward who had run from the premises was seen being assisted back onto the premises after she had what people on the scene said was an asthma attack.

One parent, Kaydian McIntosh, who had rushed to the scene after she was contacted by her 13-year-old daughter, was close to tears after she was barred from the facility and could not get any information about her child.

“She call and say ‘mummy, the place a ketch a fire’,” McIntosh said.

While the authorities were unable to say what caused the fire, residents said they were informed by some of the children who had ran from the home that it was started by one of the wards. They claimed that she was a new child who was earlier yesterday attacked and severely beaten on her arrival and retaliated by lighting the dorm.

The head of the Child Development Agency, Carla Francis-Edie, and administrators of the facility declined to speak to the media.

Last night, Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, the minister of youth, sports and culture, who rushed to the scene of the fire, expressed relief that all the caregivers and the girls were evacuated safely.

She said that a head count had revealed that nine of the girls were missing, however, the police located and returned three of them.

“We are actively searching for the others and we would welcome any information that would help us to locate them,” she said.

Grange also said that one baby who was missing was found with the help of the polilce and is to be returned to the facility shortly.