By INDARJIT SEURAJ Thursday, November 20 2008

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IN GRIEF: Relatives of three-year-old Nathalie Poon console each other yesterday, at the mortuary of the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. Two female re...

A grief-stricken Neela Poon was inconsolable yesterday, when she went to the Port-of-Spain Mortuary to witness an autopsy on the body of her three-year-old daughter, Nathalie, who was killed in a deadly landslide on Tuesday.

Poon and her husband felt the full wrath of Mother Nature during Tuesday’s torrential downpours.

Baby Nathalie Poon was asleep with her mother at their home on 76 Ariapita Avenue, St Ann’s, when, at about 3.30 pm, an avalanche of loose soil carried their house to the bottom of the hill.

Both mother and daughter who were covered in soil were eventually pulled out from the debris by relatives who then rushed them to hospital.

But by the time they arrived there, the toddler was already dead.

Yesterday at the mortuary, Poon had to be consoled by two female relatives after viewing the body of her daughter. But the relatives upbraided reporters, telling them the parents were too distraught to comment.

“Now is not a good time,” an unidentified relative said.

“Right now the mother and father can’t say anything,” she added.

Poon, who was crying uncontrollably, only blurted comments.

“My child was so nice,” she said.

“Bring she back for me,” she added.

Minutes later, just on the stroke of noon, screams echoed through the hospital when the toddler’s body was wheeled out of the autopsy room and into a waiting hearse.

The autopsy done by pathologist Dr Shaheeda Barrow yesterday, showed that baby Nathalie died from asphyxia due to chest compression (resulting from the landslide).

Officers from the Belmont Police Station are investigating.