Fire Destroys Business Premises In Umuahia

An early morning fire has destroyed a building housing three shops in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, leaving the owners, including a widow, groaning.
The building, located at Niger/Kaduna Street, Umuahia, was completely razed by fire, destroying property estimated at millions of Naira.
A victim, Mr James Idika, told The Tide that the fire started around 2 a.m, but the source was still unknown.
Idika, who runs a grinding business in one of the shops, said that he was alerted from sleep in his house off Niger Road, Umuahia, around 4.45 a.m that his shop was on fire.
“By the time I got there, the whole building was on fire and it was difficult for me to rescue any item,” he said.
Idika, who said that he opened the business in November 2016, claimed that he lost his grinding machine and other valuables, worth over N1.5 million.
However, our correspondent  reports that neighbouring houses and an overhead kerosene tank were rescued from the inferno by sympathisers.
The Tide gathered that a borehole owner opened his taps from where sympathisers fetched water to put out the fire before the arrival of men of the state fire service at the scene.
Mrs Stella Okereke, who owned the kerosene business, expressed gratitude to God and residents of the area, who stopped the fire from destroying her tank and dispensing metre.
“I thank God for his mercy as well as people in the neighbourhood and the owner of a borehole in the area for mobilising to put out the fire,” Okereke said.
A resident of the area, Mr Denga Nduagube, who said he was part of the rescue team, explained that “a more pathetic case was that of a widow”.
Nduagube said that the woman, a moher of three, known as Mrs Akpan, runs an eatery in one of the shops.
He said that Akpan, whose children were out of school due to her inability to cater for their education, lost everything she had in the incident.
“She even hides her proceeds in the shop at the end of the day, to avoid being robbed on the way,” he said.
“This is where she and her three children spend the day. They eat here in the morning, afternoon and night before retiring to their house,’’ he said.
Nduaguibe said that residents of the area were thinking of how to raise some money to assist her “to pick her pieces”.
He appealed to the government and public-spirited organisations and individuals to come to the aid of the widow.
No life was however, lost in the incident.
The spokesman of the state police command, Mr Nta Ogbonnaya, told The Tide that he was yet to get the report of the fire.
Similarly, the state fire service was yet to react to the development.