How Auto Dealers Lost Cars Worth N500m To Lagos Pipeline Fire (Photos)

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One of the car dealers collapsed after discovering that he lost 16 cars to the inferno

Petroleum pipeline vandals triggered a morning fire that burnt exotic cars houses and shops in Lagos.

A
combined team of security operatives and officials of the Lagos State
Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) are still going round the Abule
Egba neighbourhood and taking head count of people and the number of
houses burnt in last Tuesday morning pipeline fire that ravaged the
community.

But, at least over 100 houses and several shops and
about 50 vehicles were destroyed by fire which started from a vandalized
pipeline of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) at Abule
Egba and Agege.

Ruth and her duaghter explaining their plight to the Lagos State
Commissioner of Police, Imohini Edgal, when he visited the scene

The
vehicles burnt included 19 parked in an auto sales stand belonging to
Usman Hamzat. Fortunately however, a supermarket near the Samar Petrol
station was spared. Aside Hamzat’s cars parked at Samar Petrol station,
three other car shops were razed.

Rescue team went through
scorched homes and vehicles on Thursday morning to ascertain the exact
number affected. According to an unconfirmed report, 15 persons are
missing as a result of the inferno but it is unsure if they are dead or
relocated.

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal,
who made an on the spot visit to the area tasked the Divisional Police
Officer to take a head count of all injured persons. He also directed
that those injured be taken to the Lagos State University Teaching
Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja for free medical treatment

Authorities
attributed the damage done to property partly to the speed with which
flames spread through the pipe route due to the harmattan wind.

Hamzat
said about N500 million worth of cars were lost in the inferno. He said
many auto dealers took delivery of new cars in November ahead to the
Christmas and New Year sales but now have to contend with finding ways
of repaying for loans collected to purchase the vehicles.

According
to him, model of cars destroyed are mainly 2015 and 2017 Toyota
Corolla, Lexus and Mercedes Benz, and that the cheapest of them was
about N2.9 million.

He said it was really a nightmare when he was
woken by a call from a security guard around 2am that fire had gutted
the patrol station and was spreading to the parked cars. According to
him, when he arrived, only two cars were on fire. “We battled to put off
the fire for fear that it might spread. I quickly put a call across to
the fire service, but before they arrived, the fire had spread and
gutted other cars,” he said.

“Then we did not know the source of
the fire because it was coming from a vent from the underground
drainage. The stream of fire was so intense that we battle with it
without any success. When the Fire Service men came there was little or
nothing they could do. The first two water tanks they came with were
emptied within 30 minutes. They tried to dampen the flame without
success until officials of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency
(LASEMA) arrived. Officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) arrived an hour later. It was then that we knew that
the fire started from a vandalized pipe.

It was gathered that the
fire which started at a private school situated at No: 4, Segun Akinola
Street, opposite Tipper Garage, near Awori Bus stop, Abule Egba, was
triggered by activities of vandals, who brought in three tankers and
siphoned Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

Source:- Dailytrustng

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