A midnight fire incident that occurred between Tuesday and early Wednesday has destroyed 17 shops at the Iponri Shopping Complex, Lagos State with shop owners and business people losing several millions of naira.
The fire incident, according to witnesses, began at about 11.20pm on Tuesday and lasted into Wednesday morning while officials of the state fire service battled to put it out and officials of the state Emergency Management Authority (LASEMA) busied themselves rescuing products and wares from shops close to the ones already gutted.
The fire was said to have resulted from an electricity power surge, and the General Manager of LASEMA, Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu explained that the traders lost a lot of money in the inferno adding that his agency tried its best to curtail the spread of the fire in conjunction with the state fire service operators.
According to him, immediately the fire started, emergency response plan was activated by the state government.
“The fire was put off after the combined effort of emergency responders. No life was lost but it is pathetic to note that properties worth millions of naira were lost”, he explained.
It was learnt that products destroyed include generators, textile materials, plastic materials, and lot more.
It could be recalled that the market had on 6th March 2014, witnessed a fire incident which destroyed two shops.
