Lukman Olabiyi
The number of building razed by fire at the popular Balogun Market in Lagos Island increased to ten yesterday, as firefighters and others continued rescue operation.
The fire outbreak, which started on Wednesday’s morning had earlier consumed eight buildings out of which four had collapsed in the process.
But again, around 11. 05 am yesterday, the inferno gutted another building close to the previous ones.
The plaza gutted fire was located at Sanni Adewale Street, Beside Happy Plaza but for the timely invention of Fire Service personnels, and other stakeholders that were on ground, the flames was extinguished.
Director General, Lagos State Safety Commission, (LASSC), Lanre Mojola, who was at the scene, told journalists that there was no cause for alarm as his team and others agencies were in control of the situation.
Mr Mojola said his team was at the market on January 19 to sensitise the traders to the need to ensure safety in the market to avoid fire outbreak, which led to loss of lives and valuable goods in 2019.
On effort to prevent a repeat, Mr. Mojola said government and all relevant stakeholders including market leaders were already planning to introduce Safety Marshall in markets across the state.
“We had meeting with all the agencies and the local government chairmen on how we can collectively work together to prevent re-occurrence of urgly incident like this; what happened was human error. It is not something that should have happened but it has happened and we need to checkmate it. We will engage market leaders and market leaders will nominate people among them that we will train on safety measures, we are going to train the nomimiee as safety marshall. They will also be whistle-blower on issues of safety in the market,” he said.
He also disclosed that integrity test would be carried out on all buildings in the area and anyone that failed the test would be demolished.