Houses, Shops Razed In Midnight Inferno In Abia

Residents and business owners at Plot 94 Clifford road in Umuahia, capital of Abia have been lamenting over a midnight fire that engulfed their homes and shops.

The victims claimed that they lost goods and household property worth millions to the inferno.

The cause of the fire incident at the time of filing the report could not be ascertained.

No life was said to have been lost while the fire incident lasted.

Our correspondent, who visited the scene, reports that some of the shop owners were weeping uncontrollably seeing the level of damage done to their business by the fire.

It was gathered that one of the victims just offloaded his wares two days before the incident.

One of the victims, who spoke amidst tears, lamented the loss he suffered as a result of the fire incident.

One of the residents said: “It was around 11pm that a child in the compound started shouting that there is fire in one of the shops.

“We came out only to realise that the fire was too much. Before we could do anything, the fire is everywhere.

“Fire service officers came but they couldn’t do much as their water finished halfway.

“We later learnt that the gas in their fire truck got finished while they were going back and that left us helpless.

“Despite our efforts to contain the fire, the fire jumped to the building inside the compound, destroying other house properties. We saved nothing from the fire.

“We are appealing to the state government to come to our aids because the burden is too much on us.”