Over fifty shops were burnt down to ashes on Monday, November 28 at the electronics section of the Watt Market in Calabar, the Cross River State Capital.
With property worth, millions of naira were lost to the incident and now the victims are appealing to the state government to assist them to start life all over again as their major source of livelihood is now been destroyed.
The traders lamented that no fire agency was on the ground to put out the fire, forcing the victims to use manual means of preventing the fire from escalating which achieved nothing.
READ ALSO: Traders Lament As Fire Destroys Goods Worth Millions In Ondo
The electronic section at Calabar’s popular Watt Market which was consumed by fire on Monday Night is located directly behind the Atakpa Police Station. Police personnel had to rush to the area to prevent hoodlums from taking advantage of the situation to rub other shops not affected by the fire.
Although the cause of the fire disaster is unknown, the victims blamed the extent of destruction on the part of fire service that was not on the ground to put out the fire when it just began. They claimed that several calls were put through without any positive response.
One of the traders, Mr Kayode Oweheh narrated his ordeal to Channels Television.
He said, “I have closed already, I was in my house when someone just called me that there is a fire in the market so I ran and went to the state fire service, they said their vehicle is not in order and they don’t have water.
“I have to go to airport fire service, still the same thing they said there is no vehicle, that they cannot come so, we are very confused we didn’t know what to do, if not for the help of able boys here that are using water to quench the fire, it could have been more than this.”
They want the government to assist them to start life all over again as on their own, they can do nothing following the hard times.
On his part, the Director General of the State Emergency Management Agency, Mr Austin Inaku regretted the extent of destruction. He, however, assured the traders of government’s intervention following the disaster.
“So far you can see that being here, it was the State Governor himself who called me, he got the signal the signal first and called me and asked that I should move in immediately.
“Basically what we are doing now is to see how we can now have exact figures of traders affected and what really went wrong to enable us to know to see how to quantify what to give to who,” he said.
Most of the traders were seen trying to put off the fire manually as security agencies were also on ground to safeguard the area and also calm the victims.
