By Osahon Osahon
A trader whose shop was among the stalls that were razed down on Saturday night at the Santana Market along Benin/Sapele road in Benin, Edo State, has reportedly slumped and died over the unfortunate incident.
The man simply identified as Biggy slumped when he discovered that his shop was among the ones that were completely destroyed during the late Saturday fire outbreak in the market.
The trader, whom sources claimed was not aware of the incident on Saturday, had arrived the market to resume commercial activity on Sunday when he observed that there was a fire outbreak the previous night, and his store was affected.
It was gathered that the deceased was said to have been rushed to nearby hospital in the area where he was pronounced dead by the hospital officials.
Some of the sympathisers claimed that the victim died before they could get to the hospital to offer him urgent medical attention.
Unconfirmed reports had it that one of the firefighters who were drafted to the scene to put off the fire on Saturday reportedly lost his life in the process.
The fire incident which was said to have started at about 11pm Saturday night, consumed about 80 per cent of both open and lock-up shops in the market.
Goods worth several millions of naira was lost to the midnight inferno.
A resident of the area told journalists on Sunday that, “Yesterday (Saturday), around 11pm, we heard a distress call from the security men from the market that there was a fire. They said the fire was caused by power surge. The fire then engulfed the stores.
“We contacted the state fire service but there was no response, it was a good Samaritan from NNPC that now contacted their office to rescue us.”
One of the traders who gave her name simply as Mrs. Edobor, said she lost bags of rice, galons of groundnut oil and cartons of tin tomatoes in her two shops to the fire.
“I took loan of about N2.5 million to buy rice, groundnut oil and tomatoes for this Christmas season market.
“They called me and informed me that my shops were on fire. There is nothing I could bring out because the fire burnt my goods completely,” she said.
The Chairman of Ikpoba-Okha local government area, Eric Osayande, was on ground to assess the extent of damage by the fire.
Osayande while addressing some of the victims, assured them that government would investigate the cause of the fire incident which he said is the first time since the history of the market with a view preventing a re-occurrence.
He promised that the Local Government Council will appeal to the State Government for assistance because the extent of damage is not what the Council alone can solve.