Fire Guts Hausa Quarters in Yenagoa

Posted by admin Bayelsa, Headlines, State News Saturday, September 7th, 2013

A mid-night inferno has rendered homeless more than 400 residents of Hausa/Fulani Community, a suburb around the Aretallin area of Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.
Scores of residential apartments, including permanent structures, batchers and make-shift houses were completely destroyed, while property estimated to cost millions of Naira were also consumed in the inferno.
Some elders of the Hausa Community lamented over the incident, saying that the fire may have been caused by overload of electrical appliances in one of the houses.
The poor response of the Fire Service Department in the state was blamed for the magnitude of damages suffered by the victims.
A victim, one Abubakar Yauri said, the fire incident,which started at about 11.30pm, has rendered many families homeless as others lost their life savings and property, “but we thank Allah that no life was lost”.
It was gathered that the fire started immediately electricity supply was restored after many days of black-out in the area by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
According to Abubakar,the heavy load of the voltage restored by PHCN sparked off a loud sound from some meters, leading to heavy smoke which rattled the neighbourhood.
“Many people did not know that the meter that exploded was connected to a building in the area. Before we knew, a huge ball of smoke engulfed the entire area and fire consumed the walls connected to the tight shanties and buildings.The fire became unbearable and consumed building after building.”
Abubakar said efforts by sympathizers could not salvage the situation as firefighters came to the scene very late.
A senior police officer, who chooses anonymity but confirmed the incident, said investigations are on to determine the real cause of the fire.

-Tidewp_posts