A fire outbreak on Subway destroyed shops and goods worth millions of naira at Eda Plaza, a building materials market located opposite Chida Hotel in Jabi, Abuja.
In a footage posted by the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, shop owners were seen racing to salvage their goods.
According to an eyewitness who spoke to the NTA on the condition of anonymity, an alarm was raised around 3:00am when his brother-in-law, who owns two shops and a packing store within the affected plaza, received a distress call from a colleague at the market.
The eyewitness, however, said there were no casualties in the incident.
“We were at home this morning, as early as 3:00am, and my brother-in-law received a call from one of his colleagues here in the plaza that the plaza was on fire. So we had to rush down there. On getting here, we discovered that the situation was so bad,” the eyewitness said.
According to him, by the time they arrived at the scene, the fire had already spread extensively, leaving only one of his brother-in-law’s two shops standing.
“In this plaza, my brother-in-law had two shops and a packing store. Unfortunately, only one of the shops was saved. The other shop and the packing store were totally damaged by the fire,” he added.
The eyewitness put the value of roofing materials lost in the blaze at more than N20 million, lamenting that some of the destroyed materials were supplied the night before the incident.
At the time of filing this report, the Federal Capital Territory Fire Service is yet to react to the incident.
Goods worth millions of naira destroyed as fire razes Abuja building materials market