A night fire has razed the New Benin Market in
the Oredo Local Government Area of Edo State, destroying goods said to be worth
millions of naira.
According to our source said that the inferno began in one
of the shops laden with foodstuffs and spread to other shops as most of the
traders did not open for business.
It was also learnt that efforts by some of them,
who later rushed to the scene to save the situation, proved abortive before the
intervention of officials of the Edo State Fire Service.
Many of the affected shop owners arrived on
Monday to discover that their goods had been destroyed.
While some of the traders lamented their losses,
others were seen trying to salvage what was left of their goods.
Our correspondent learnt that one of them, who
rushed to the scene, collapsed when he saw that the goods inside his shop had
been reduced to ashes.
The man, whose identity could not be ascertained,
was said to have been rushed to a nearby hospital by some sympathisers.
A trader, who gave his name as Chukwudi Anisieke,
lamented that he lost goods worth over N7m to the inferno.
Anisieke explained that he had stocked his shop
with fresh goods around 8pm on Saturday.
He said, “The entire thing is beyond me; I am
totally confused. I was at home yesterday (Sunday) when people called me on the
telephone that the New Benin Market was on fire.
“Before I got here, everywhere had been burnt and
I could not pick out a single thing from my shop. I lost more than N7m worth of
goods to the fire.”
Another victim, Samuel Ijezie, said, “I was
somewhere close to the market to buy something when I saw people gathering
around. I do not go to the market on Sunday.
“But because of the crowd, I rushed to the area
to see what was happening only to see that the market was on fire. But before I
could get to my shop, the fire had taken over everywhere.
“I did not save anything from the shop. I lost
more than N2m worth of goods to the fire. I did not bring anything out.”
No comments:
Post a Comment