More than 40 makeshift (batcher) houses have gone up in flames on Onukwuru Street, off Rumuolumeni Road (Iwofe Road), in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, leaving behind properties worth millions of naira in ruins.
Scores of residents were displaced on Tuesday when the fire broke out and swept rapidly through the densely populated settlement, engulfing homes and reducing personal belongings to ashes.
One of the affected residents, Goodnews Imoh, blamed the incident on alleged negligence. He said the fire started when a woman frying groundnuts over a firewood stove was warned by another woman against pouring kerosene from a jerrycan into a nearby basin while the fire was still burning.
According to him, the warning was ignored, and the kerosene ignited on contact with the flames, causing the fire to spread swiftly through the cluster of makeshift houses.
Lamenting his losses, Imoh said he was only able to rescue his wife and children.
“Everything don vanish. I no fit rescue anything but my wife and children. I loss everything, including my certificates, but we thank God for life,” he said.
He appealed to the Rivers State Government and well-meaning Nigerians to assist victims of the incident, saying many families had been left homeless after losing all their possessions.
Some residents also alleged that the woman believed to have triggered the fire was taken away from the area by her children and relatives to an undisclosed location shortly after the incident.
Residents made frantic efforts to contain the blaze, but the flames quickly overwhelmed the makeshift structures before they could be brought under control.
No fatalities were recorded as of the time of filing this report. However, the inferno displaced many families and destroyed properties worth millions of naira. Relevant emergency agencies were yet to issue an official statement or confirm the cause of the fire as of press time
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