By: Oginyi Nkechinyere
Hausa quarters in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, a commercial residence belonging to one Mr. Hassan was engulfed by fire on the 31st Dec .2018.
Our Correspondent gathered that the quarters housing not less than 10 flats fire which started between 9 and 10 pm rendered the whole occupants of the building homeless and refugees.
The victim’s neighbors and sympathizers were seen jubilating and singing praises to God on the new year day, 1st January, 2019 for saving their lives even though properties worth million’s of naira was lost, nobody came out with thing, not even a pin.
Narrating the ordeal, one of the tenants and an eyewitness of the whole sudden misfortune, Mrs Judith noted that nobody has ascertained the cause of the fire.
Her words, “I went to sleep, I don’t know what happened and l did not know the cause of the fire. My husband went for outside work; he came back around after 9 to 10. As I was still sleeping, he came in and called me to get up that he was back. I woke up and welcomed him. I now sat down on the bed and my husband still sitting on the cushion. He now saw fire coming, our ceilings were already falling off and we were hearing sounds from the zinc kakakaka. So I got up and carried baby and ran out, he followed me and we did not bring out any other thing, only my baby, she said.
“Trying to go back to see if I can take out anything, our ceiling from the passage was already falling so I couldn’t go in. My husband, who went through the back door, could not come out and I was shouting my husband is still insideooo, constantly so his friend now went inside from the other back and drags him out because there was no entrance again.
“The passage, ceiling even walls in fact everything has already fallen. People that were at back trying to quench the fire all ran away as the walls were falling before they called fire service but before their arrival, everything was down so they stopped it from entering another compound.
“Nobody saved anything but no life was lost. Everything in the building was burnt beyond recognition” She ended.
