LAGOS OCTOBER 22ND (URHOBOTODAY)-The economic stay of traders and shop owners at Ogbe-Ijoh market and Concrete Jetty Waterside are in ruins as they lose goods worth more than millions of naira to a fire outbreak.
Ogbe-Ijoh Market and Concrete Jetty Waterside in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State is notorious for regular fire outbreak that usually renders indigent traders impecunious annually.
The fire outbreak, according to eyewitnesses, started at about 4:00 a.m on Monday morning and what led to it is yet to be ascertained.
As of the time our correspondent got to the scene, a huge crowd of sympathisers and helpless traders were sighted examining the remains of their lofty but ruined wares.
The inferno, which, however, recorded no human casualties, destroyed several shops in a row, consisting of bars, tailoring stores, hairdressing salons and warehouse harbouring building materials.
One of the traders, Mrs Queen Odumba, who spoke to TribuneOnline requesting urgent help amid tears, said that she was called around 6:00 a.m and before she got to her shop, everything had been burnt to ashes.
“Na around 6:00 they take call me to say market dey burn as they call me, na I rush come dey pray make e no affect my shop but before I reach here, everything don burn.
“Na materials I dey sell and everything wey dey the store reach about N700,000 to N800,000.
“By the time wey I come, the fire still dey burn the firefighters wey dem call, water finish for their tank, dem con need to wait for another motor before dem come off am.
“Till now, we never still know wetin cause the fire. I no know where I go start from and e never tey wey I build the store,” she lamented.
Other traders, who wore long faces, refused to speak, as they were still licking their wounds and counting their losses.
One of the firefighters, who declined to identify himself, said they tried their best within available means to curtail the raging fire from spreading to other parts of the market.
Tribune Online