Tension in Port Harcourt on Friday as residents of the Rivers State capital witnessed a cocktail of fire incidents in four different locations, barely a week after over 100 persons were roasted in a tanker explosion
While residents around Abuloma Jetty were jolted by the explosion of a vessel that claimed the lives of at least 30 persons, workers of Rivers State Newspaper Corporation lost property worth millions of naira as fire gutted the second floor of The Tide Newspaper building located on Ikwerre Road.
Also, the Engineering Department of a Port Harcourt-based radio station, Rhythm FM, was razed by an early morning fire that had made the station to go off air.
On the explosion of a vessel at the Abuloma Jetty, it was gathered that the occupants of the ship, excluding three persons who escaped, were dead.
“Fire is still restricted to the water area. FRSC, NEMA, Police and other rescue agencies are on ground. Casualty figures are yet unknown.” Sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC in Rivers state Kayode Olagunja said
The Rivers Police Command however affirmed that it did not suspect any foul play in the fires, which gutted the Abuloma jetty.
A resident of Abuloma, Mr. Jame Israel, who witnessed the incident, said the blast occurred about 9.30 am as a result of the maintenance work being carried out in the vessel by welders.
“The welders were trying to seal an opening to block a leakage on the deck of the vessel’s fuel tank and in the process, the vessel exploded. The welders died, but we cannot ascertain how many people died inside the vessel,” Israel added.
Another eyewitness, who identified himself as Ifeanyi, said the explosion threw one of the welders above the vessel before he (welder) landed into the fire that sent a heavy smoke into the air.
“I saw it; the impact of the explosion pushed one of the person suspected to be the welder very high before he landed back into the fire. The explosion caused the buildings around this place to vibrate.
“When we heard the sound, we initially thought it was a bomb blast from a terrorist group. But we later learnt that the explosion occurred as a result of the welding work being done in the ship,” Ifeanyi said.
At The Tide office, the editor of the paper, Mr. Soye Jamabo, said fire gutted the second floor of the building about 2 am, destroying vital documents.
Jamabo added that fire fighters across the road tried to put out the fire to no avail as their pipe was not long enough to get to the second floor of the building.
Similarly, the state Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mr. Okpaka Dokubo, explained that the state-owned fire service officials were helpless as their equipment failed them at a critical time.
“The fire fighters came, but their equipment were ineffective. Their water pipe could not go beyond the first floor of the building. If not for the intervention of fire fighters from Total, the entire building would have been razed,” Okpaka stated.
The state Commissioner for Information and Communication, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, who visited Tide, was said to have directed workers to go home pending when they would get instructions from the government.