A blazing fire swept through a three-story building at the Aboabo station in the Kumasi metropolis, destroying items running into thousands of Ghana cedis, yesterday.
The building housed about 30 stores that deal in various kinds of goods including foams and rubber buckets.
It also harbour most of the head porters (kayaye) who have made the place their haven.
No person was hurt as at the time of the fire, all the ‘kayayes’ were out of the building.
The building started collapsing while the fire service personnel were trying their best to control the fire.
From a distance, all one could see was a thick smoke in the sky with people rushing to have a view of the scene. Interestingly, it was a nose mask-free atmosphere.
Some members of the public, led by Hassan Abubakar, Mohammed Towfic, Mubarak Eliasu and Bashiru Obobo, did a yeoman’s work as they did their best to break into the stores at the ground floor to remove items mainly rubber buckets and foams, among others before the fire could cause damage, while the police were yet to arrive at the scene.
According to them, they saw the smoke as early as 8am in the morning and sent an SOS to the Fire Service but they responded at about 11:30am when lot of damage had been caused already.
About seven fire tenders were mobilised and used but it took a long ttime for the fire to be controlled at about 1:20pm, as at the time of filing this report.
The Ghanaian Times gathered some welders were tasked to work on an iron gate at the third floor, and there was a hitch which resulted in the fire outbreak.
Meanwhile, the workers fled leaving behind their welding machine.
This is the first fire outbreak in the Kumasi metropolis since the start of 2021.
FROM KINGSLEY E. HOPE, KUMASI
