A promising and highly-praised Belizean physics student at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad is dead. 17-year-old Rishi Cummings apparently committed suicide yesterday afternoon by jumping 150 feet to his death.

News reports from Trinidad are that yesterday afternoon at 3:00, Cummings jumped off the roof of a three-storey building at UWI's Saint Augustine Campus. Students report seeing Cummings approach the roof of the building and then suddenly jump. He received massive injury but did not die on the spot. He was rushed to a nearby emergency room where he was pronounced dead after 4:00 pm.

Media reports out of Trinidad say that Cummings jumped after he failed to do well on an exam. Here at 7NEWS we first met Cummings in February of 2003 when the then St. John's College student was awarded for his achievement on the CXC exams.

Rishi Cummings was born in Barbados but became a naturalized Belizean. He moved here from Trinidad in 1990 along with his mother Madri Rhamdass. The family settled in Belmopan where Rhamdass, an attorney by training, worked in the Attorney General's Ministry. Rishi lived here until last year when he graduated from SJC and moved to Trinidad to study on a scholarship. He was living on campus and his mom also later moved back to Trinidad which is her native country. Rishi Cummings, as we understand it, left no family members behind in Belize. Those who knew him told 7NEWS that Rishi was very bright and generally quiet and reserved.