About four people have reportedly died while about 12 persons were said to have sustained various degrees of injury during an explosion at the Onitsha Chemical Market, Onitsha, Anambra State on Tuesday.
The inferno equally destroyed goods and properties worth millions of naira.
After the explosion occurred at about 12:45 pm, a stampede ensued at the market.
Chairman of Onitsha South local government area, Mr Emeka Orji, on getting wind of the incident stormed the area with members of his staff and contacted the Anambra State Fire Service led by Martin Agbili who deplored officers and men of the department from Okpoko in Ogbaru local government area and that of Asaba in Delta State who took over the market.
Also, the Council Chairman Orji contacted the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Fegge Rabiu Garuba, who deployed officers and men to the market to guarantee the security of goods and other properties belonging to the traders.
“Our proactive measures about fire outbreak also paid off because we had put in place fire fighting gadgets in some lines and that was what the traders and market task force team were using to fight the fire before the Anambra State Fire Service came in,” he said.
Orji however noted that “the number of deaths could not be ascertained as well as the number of those injured but those injured have been rushed to the medical facilities around the area and we are happy that most of them are responding to treatment.”
Mr Nweke Uchenna, one of the traders who spoke to this reporter said: “We were at our shops as usual when we heard a loud noise like a bomb blast and we saw thick smoke from some shops upstairs and everyone started running for safety.
“Then people started shouting for help and we saw people carrying bodies of people from those shops that were on fire and some were burnt pretty badly while some seem to have been suffocated by the smoke and the stampede.
“We don’t know how much has been lost to the fire but it can be estimated at N850 million to about N1 billion because the goods are strong chemical products that are highly inflatable.
“We are happy that the Anambra State Fire Service came on time to prevent the inferno from going deep into the market.”
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