Omon Esene, Warri
Traders at the Warri auto spare parts market were inconsolable on Monday as a mysterious fire razed many blocks of shops in the market located on Lower Erejuwa area, Warri, Delta State.
Yesterday?s incident took place less than two weeks after a similar inferno completely destroyed goods worth millions at the popular pessu market and Syracuse hospital in Warri, the commercial capital of the state.
Fire fighters who arrived the scene of the fire incident complained of water shortage before they were turned back by the traders.
The mysterious fire which started in the early hours, consumed several blocks of shops and assorted automobile spare-parts, running into hundreds of millions of naira.
Although no life was lost to the disaster, shop owners affected by the incident were seen running round to put out what was left of the fire at the time, even as heaps of charred merchandizes were seen all around the shops.
Nobody could ascertain the cause of the fire, but those who volunteered to give an account of what they knew of the incident, said it could not have been an electrical fault because there was power outage at the time the fire started.
Chairman of the traders? association, ?Chief Donatus Chiaha, told Daily Times that more than fifty shops, belonging to about 200 traders, were razed in the inferno.
It was learnt that the fire started at about 3:00am and was still raging at about two o?clock in the afternoon.
?Though I cannot say exactly, the loss runs into hundreds of millions because I have nothing less than 200 men trading here because you sometimes have two to three persons in one shop and they? are all doing well here.
?This is a very big loss because most of our boys came back, geared up for the year; some borrowed money from cooperatives, from village meetings, from different sources, in order to prepare for business in the first quarter of the year or the whole year.
?? All of us borrowed with the intention of paying back at the end of the year, but what has happened is really unfortunate?.
The traders urged public spirited individuals to come to their aid as it would be difficult to rebuild the market on their own.
