It was a sad day for business owners inside Post Office Umungasi Aba, Abia State as fire caused by a petrol tanker razed down Charles Fueling Station and adjoining buildings in the area.
The fire which started around 11:AM – according to an eyewitness started off under a Petrol Tanker which came to discharge its contents at the Charles Filling Station.
The fire was said to have ignited under the tanker while the driver was trying to get it to the right place for offloading, on noticing the fire, the driver ran off and raised an alarm which prompted the filling station staffers to use bucket of water trying to put off the fire.
“The fire overwhelmed the staff and they ran off, while the tanker explodes and the fire intensity became high”, an eyewitness told AbaCityBlog.
AbaCityBlog reporter who rushed to the scene accessed the damages caused by the fire, shops and printing press inside the post office Umungasi Aba were totally razed down and, although, no life was lost.
Speaking to the press on the fire incident, Chief Arua Nnanna, the director of Abia State Fire Service, said they rushed to the scene after receiving a distress call from an Aba resident who told them that a filling station was on fire and their service is urgently needed.
He said after the first call, he got another call that the velocity of the fire was too high and that made him to order for more two trucks from Umuahia to be brought down to Aba to fight the fire.
He said: “I got a distress call from Aba that there is a fuel tanker fire in Aba, so I had to dispatch my two trucks from Constitution Crescent, Aba – by the time I got the second call, that the fire was too much, I had to call the chief of staff to the governor who gave me the authority to push my two trucks from Umuahia down to Aba to make sure that everywhere was put under control.
“Right now, we have four trucks, two from Aba and two from Umuahia. If you look at the tanker that was on fire, you will found out that maybe they were discharging the content inside and we always told them that if you’re doing discharging or offloading, do it in the morning, don’t do it in the afternoon when the intensity is very high, or you do it later in the day in the night.
“And why doing that, make sure you have necessary safety provisions around you, if you look at that area, I can’t not even spot one single fire extinguisher
“We want to thank God that there was no death recorded, nobody died and we want to thank His Excellency, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu in his own passionate way, was fully here this afternoon, to come and access exactly what happened.
“And I want to also thank the stakeholders and relevant agencies, the passersby, the public that also helped the firemen, in fact this is one of the best in Aba, because I know those days in Aba, you will see them stoning firemen, but today we didn’t record any of such incident, because life is involve and everybody was onboard to make that the fire was brought under control.
Speaking on the level of damage, Mr Arua said; “from my own professional point of view, almost millions of naira were lost here, if you look at the product, the contents and adjoining building you will know that millions of naira were lost.
“He advised business owners to always insure their business, according to him, if you insure your market, your offices or premises, within this space time you will move to the insurance and they will come and access and give you something to bounce back.
“He equally advised Aba resident to buy portable safety provisions, like portable fire extinguisher in your home so that whenever there is fire, you can have something that you can use to fight the fire before the arrival of your neighbours or firefighters”, he added.
