LAGOS JANUARY 13TH (URHOBOTODAY)-No fewer than 20 flats in a building and the property of the occupants were burnt when gas exploded at the popular Bonsaac area in Asaba, Delta State.
This came barely three weeks after fire gutted the popular timber market in the locality at Chiedu Okoh Plaza, on the Onitsha-Asaba Expressway and destroyed goods worth N80 million.
The timber market fire outbreak was linked to either a power surge from the nearby electric pole or a spark from a cold-room behind the timber market.
Before men of the Delta State Fire Service got to the explosion scene, the building, which contains 20 flats of 20 different families, had been engulfed by fire.
This forced owners of nearby houses, churches and business centres to be running helter-skelter to prevent the fire from spreading to their buildings.
A victim, who gave her name as Mama Chiamaka, who was weeping and gnashing her teeth, said the fire started from a flat in the building.
She said: “We were outside taking fresh air. Suddenly we saw smoke from one of the flats. We raised the alarm. It was then one of our neighbours shouted that they forgot that they put food on the cooking gas. As we wanted to start to evacuate some of our things, the gas exploded and made us to retreat. And that was it.”
Mama Chiamaka said except for a few belongings that were salvaged, valuable documents, electrical gadgets, money and the entire building were burnt.
The Chairman of the Anioma Building Materials and Timber Dealers Association, Mr. Michael Awunor, who said they had not recovered from shock, lamented that some of the occupants of the burnt flats were yet to return from the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Awunor said some of them might not return to Asaba with their family members the moment they knew they had lost everything they had laboured for in the fire outbreak.
New Telegraph