A former resident of Patentia, West Demerara, is feared dead following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (WTC), in Manhattan, New York on Tuesday .

Relatives of Annette Dataram, 24, also called `Priya’ confirmed that she had left her home in South Zone Park, New York on Tuesday, to report for work at the WTC, but up to yesterday, had not returned home.

Her distraught father, Mr Madan Rajkumar, who lives at 265 Patentia Housing Scheme, said his wife, who called from the United States yesterday, felt sure that the young woman had been killed, since she was working exactly at the section of one tower, into which one of the hijacked aircraft had crashed.

Rajkumar said that his wife, Mrs Mahadai Rajkumar, who resides in New York with three of their children, called Guyana frantically yesterday morning, saying that their daughter had left for work, since Tuesday morning, and not returned home.

He said that since learning of the disaster, he had been trying to make contact with his family in the United States, but had been unsuccessful.

At 7:55 hours yesterday, Rajkumar said, his wife eventually got through to him and disclosed the horrifying news.

When the `Chronicle’ visited the Patentia home around noon yesterday, Rajkumar was trying to comfort the couple’s two younger children, Romel 12, and Giada 16.

Rajkumar said that as soon as he picked up the telephone, he heard his wife sobbing, then she cried: “Priya is dead!”

Then there was a sudden silence, and the phone went dead. Rajkumar said he hung up the telephone, and then waited. With minutes, he said, his wife called again, explaining that she had temporarily lost consciousness.

Rajkumar, a Field Foreman attached to GUYSUCO’s Wales Estate, said that his daughter Priya was planning to be married early next year, and he was in the process of preparing to travel up to the United States to assist his family in finalising the wedding arrangements.

His wife, he said, was expected home on October 8, and he was due to accompany her back to the United States on October 23. He said Priya, who had bought flight tickets for her parents, had told them that it was her gift to them.

“But now I’m wondering if this is the gift,” the distraught father said, shaking his head.

Relatives in Patentia were yesterday preparing to sit through last night offering comfort to Rajkumar and his two children here. By yesterday, afternoon, several relatives were staring at the television set hoping that their fears would be allayed. It was all they could do, since telephone calls from Guyana were not being terminated in the United States.

Rajkumar said his wife is so distraught that she kept asking him to travel to New York to be with her because she was unable to hold her own. She did not seem to understand, he said, that all flights in and out of the US had been suspended.

Mahadai and three of their five children had migrated to the United States when Priya was 16, Rajkumar said.