More than three persons were feared dead yesterday when fire razed the second floor of a six-storey building at Balogun Market on Lagos Island.
The fire, which started at 10am, was caused by an electrical surge.
It was learnt that the cause of the fire was electrical surge.
The building was filled with shoes, bags and fabrics.
Lagos State Fire Service Director Rasaq Fadipe said three fire trucks were deployed to fight the inferno.
“The second floor is like a hall demarcated with metal sheets into 20 shops and at the same time, the traders disrupted us from doing our job because most of them made sure they evacuated some of their goods.
“To prevent it from spreading to the third floor, we used chemical foam. Traders associations should ensure that they have first aid fire equipment to combat such incident before emergency workers are contacted,” he said.
An eye witness said the fire started as the complex manager was trying to operate the power switch.
The fire brigade, he said, was unable to access the building because of the cubicles on the street.
Some eye witnesses, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigerian (NAN), said that some people who jumped out from various floors of the burning plaza to escape the fire were carried away dead.
Mallam Hamza Abdullahi, a trader in the market told NAN that he saw three dead bodies and five people who were wounded.
“People were shouting and jumping down from up stairs, I saw a woman dead with her skull open,” he said.
Another witness, Ismail Adebanjo, confirmed that the cubicles had caused damages in the past, leading to the destruction of three buildings in January.
Nonso, a trader, said he watched his good burning, pointing out that he wanted to kill himself.
Ogbona, another trader, said he ran to a nearby bank for fire extinguishers but got no positive response.
