(File copy of fire incident)
No fewer than ten shops and millions of naira property were destroy by an inferno gutted the popular two storey shopping complex in Bauchi.
The inferno which started at about 2:12 pm and lasted for good two hours as the men of the fire service seems helpless due to lack functional vehicles and fuel, said a source.
The shopping complex is located at the popular DogoYaro roundabout. The inferno attracted passers bye and residents of the area who resorted to mutual quelling of the inferno before the Federal Polytechnic fire fighting unit came to the aide of the volunteers.
Shop owners within the shopping counted their losses as some of them said they collected loan from banks to step up the businesses and some of them have not even started paying the loan.
A man who operates a printing press within the shopping complex said he lost over 3 million naira to the inferno and he is still taking stock of the other property that went off in the flame.
Operators of joined barbing salon described the incident as painful saying they set up the shop not long ago and had to borrow monies from relationship and banks which they have not even starting paying back the debts and they were already facing threats from the banks.
Another eyewitness, Suleiman Mohammed said: “the fire razed all the shops at the first storey building. When the fire service delayed,the youths started throwing water to stop the fire from affecting the remaking shops at the second floor”
A trader popularly known as Usman Ahmed who owns a cosmetic shop said that the fire razed all his goods,adding that he has to started all over again.
According to him,” I learnt that it was the owner of the shopping complex that was burning something and before he knew it, the fire went out of hand and spread to the buildings”
