…Senator Uba visits fire victims
From Aloysius Attah and Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Polythene Products and Plastic Market Industrial Cluster, Ekene Dili Chukwu workshop, Onitsha, near Awada Obosi, Anambra State, went up in flames yesterday, destroying machines and products valued at over N500 million.
This was coming barely two weeks after a petrol tanker fire accident in Onitsha, that caused serious havoc.
Witnesses said the fire started at about 6:00pm within the industrial cluster suspected to have been caused by an electrical spark before the whole area burst into flames.
Chairman of business operators in the area, Elder Anthony Ubakasi, while speaking with Daily Sun lamented that all their life struggles have been consumed in the fire.
He said more than 20 extruder and blowing machines valued at N10 million each were destroyed in the fire including raw materials running into hundreds of millions of naira.
Ubakasi said the fire fighters who were called on phone responded late while they could not do much because they soon ran out of water. According to him, residents from neighbouring buildings within the cluster opened up their borehole water tanks which was used to augment that of the fire service, thereby preventing the fire from escalating into the 2nd and 3rd industrial cluster and private homes of residents in the area.
As at the time of filing this report, smouldering fire was still billowing in some sections of the burnt market while no government official has visited the scene.
Meanwhile, Senator Andy Uba has visited the scene of the fire
disaster at Onitsha, which ravaged over 13 houses, including a filling station and destroyed property worth hundreds of millions of naira.
On Wednesday, February 15, 2017, at about 7.45pm, a loaded petrol tanker, coming down from Awka Road axis of the metropolis, lost its brakes and rammed into a Mobil petrol station, and burst into fire on impact. The filling station, four multiple storey buildings and 10 vehicles were destroyed on Oguta Road, while four multiple storey buildings and two cars were destroyed on Oboli Street.
Senator Uba, who represents Anambra South senatorial district in the Senate, arrived scenes of the incident, accompanied by a tumultuous crowd of supporters, loyalists and members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including Senator Uche Ekwunife.
The lawmaker, who was visibly shaken by the enormity of the devastation caused by the fire told the crowd that he did not come to see the scenes of the incident but to see the victims of the inferno and sympathise with them personally, with the view of teaming up with government and good spirited individuals to assist the victims of the inferno.
He, thereafter, trekked down Oguta Road, Oboli Street and Upper New Market Road, stopped at every burnt building to talk to landlords of the buildings, owners of lost businesses and other victims of the disaster.
Senator Uba spoke to everyone, condoled with them and made assurances.