Traders and residents of Bishop Okoye/Dickson Street in Mile 3, Diobu, Port Harcourt are now counting their losses following a sudden inferno, which razed goods worth millions of Naira, at the popular Mile 3 Market, last Friday.
The fire, which began at about 8:30pm, burnt everything in and around the shops, after the traders had closed for the day’s business.
The cause of the fire could not be immediately ascertained as at the time of filing this report.
Eyewitnesses said they had no knowledge of what actually caused the fire outbreak, which touched over 10 shops.
The fire razed the shops, where bags of rice, cartons of tomatoes, frozen chickens and other consumables and food stuffs were stored.
It was gathered that residents and officials of the Rivers State Fire Service battled to put out the fire with so many frozen chickens and bags of rice burnt.
The immediate past Vice Chairman of Goat Meat Sellers Association, Nelson Tasie, who confirmed the incident, said fire service officials made efforts to put out the fire but did not come with enough water.
Tasie said operatives of Operation Delta Flush in Mile Police Station and some good Samaritans assisted fire service officials to put out the fire.
One of the devastated victims of the inferno said, “I got a call that fire was burning in our market, then me and my children ran there immediately. I got there and I was looking at how my shop was burning. All the bags of rice have finished. I am finished. I have been crying. I don’t know what to do again”.
An eyewitness, who did not want his name in print, said, “Many of them just returned from Onitsha and Aba to refill their stores and this kind of thing has happened. This fire disaster happens every year. We don’t know what to do, I don tire.”
It would be recalled that in a similar incident occurred in 2006, when a significant part of Mile 1 Market was razed by a mysterious fire.
On assumption of office in 2007, the Sir Celestine Omehia-led state administration awarded contract for the reconstruction of the first phase off the market.
That phase was, however, completed and commissioned by the previous administration.
In December, 2013, another section of the same Mile One Market went up in flames.