A devastating late-night inferno has leveled the well-known timber market in Calabar, a critical hub for the wood industry and related commerce within the state capital.
Local merchants are reeling from the disaster, estimating that the flames have “consumed over N500 million worth of planks and other timber goods in hundreds of shops.”
The blaze reportedly broke out on Friday evening, a time when the majority of vendors had already locked up and finished “business for the day.” At this stage, “nobody is yet certain as to the cause of the fire is.”
Disturbingly, “no fire service unit has responded to the emergency” by the time of this report. This lack of intervention has become a grim pattern; “in most of the fire incidents in the state capital in recent times, fire services have hardly responded, leaving structures completely razed.”
This inaction follows a similar tragedy from “last weekend,” when authorities “did not attempt to respond when there was a major gas explosion at a private filling station on Edibe Edibe Road in Calabar South LGA.” This is despite the fact that “there are state and federal fire service in Calabar as well as Airport, Nigerian Port Authority fire services.”
Local “eye witnesses have reported that most of the shops in the timber market have been burnt down.” In a state of panic, many “timber traders who returned home after close of business have hurried back to the market to see possibility of salvaging any items.”
So far, “no relevant authoritt, including the police, state emergency management agency and fire services have made any statements” regarding the incident or the lack of response.