in Lagos: Fire destroys plaza, 15 shops, goods
Goods worth millions of naira were, on Wednesday, destroyed by fire, which wreaked havoc on 15 shops on Balogun Road in the Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos State.
It was gathered that the fire started around 2am.
According to Punch news, the fire started from one of the shops and spread to the others before help could come.
When our correspondent visited the scene, residents were seen lamenting the damage the fire had done to the shops and the goods in them, noting that some of the shop owners had been hospitalised.
One of the shop owners, simply identified as Bolaji, urged the state government to come to the aid of the victims.
Bolaji, who is a printer, noted that all his customers’ jobs got burnt, adding that he was unable to salvage any.
Another shop owner, Lukman Adejola, who deals in clocks and wristwatches, said his phone was switched off when the fire started, adding that all his goods had been burnt before he got to the scene.
One of the first responders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said residents of the area tried to salvage the goods in the shops, but they did not succeed as the shops were securely locked.
Lamenting the goods lost to the inferno, a resident, who identified herself simply as Mummy Yetunde, said almost all the traders had their shops fully stocked with goods.
When contacted, the spokesperson for the state Fire Service, Muinat Adeleke-Ashimi, told PUNCH Metro that she would make an enquiry and get back to our correspondent, but she had yet to do so as of the time of filing this report.
In a related development, fire gutted the upper floor of a one-storey shopping plaza on Akerele Street in the Surulere area of the state on Wednesday.
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency said preliminary investigation conducted at the scene of the incident revealed that the inferno resulted from power surge in one of the shops before spreading to other parts of the plaza. Punch
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