Shop owners lose millions in Abia plaza fire

Shop owners at the popular Emejiaka Plaza located along Ngwa road, off Ngwa road market lost property worth millions in Saturday evening fire outbreak that engulfed the building.

The Emejiaka Plaza houses not less than 500 tailors, including others dealing in clothing and tailoring materials.

The Nation gathered the fire outbreak began a tailor whose name was yet-to-be ascertained was refilling the tank of the generating set without switching it off.

Our correspondent gathered that it was a common habit amongst the tailors who would rather prefer refiling their generator set while it is still steaming than turning it off.

It was gathered that the traders scampered for safety when it became obvious that they could not contain the fire.

Narrating the incident, one of the early callers to the scene that simply gave his name Christopher, disclosed that the fire incident began 4pm Saturday and lasted till 7pm.

According to him: “We learnt that the fire started when one of the tailors was refiling his generator. The fuel dripped and touched the exhaust which resulted to the fire outbreak.

“There was nothing they can do as the fire was too much for them.

“The Abia State Fire Service could not come as several attempts made to come to the rescue of the shop owners failed, leaving the affected victims to engage in self-help to fight the fire.

“Apart from a nearby house that gave out their pipe for people to fetch water from, others along the road blocked the tanker supplying water to the construction company on Ngwa road where they fetched water from to stop the fire from consuming the entire building.

“Expensive sewing machines, phones, cash, tailoring materials, power generating sets and among other valuables were consumed in the fire.

“A particular woman who came from Port Harcourt that was crying said that the goods that she has paid for and was waiting to be packaged in a bag were all consumed.

” All those that have shops upstair couldn’t save anything from their shops.

“We were told that a shop owner just offloaded goods worth not less than N5million from his warehouse into his shop in the plaza not less than 24hrs before the fire incident.”

A fire service personnel, who would not want to be named, attributed the rate of the fire rage to the rise in temperature and heat from the numerous generator sets in use at the same time at the densely populated plaza.

Unconfirmed reports have it that the State fire service personnel whose trucks were burnt during the #ENDSARS protest could not go to the fire scene as police operatives in the area refused to give the firemen protection.