Several families looses house as fire razes makeshift buildings in Lagos

Firstclass newsline learnt that an early morning fire yesterday, razed
several makeshift buildings in the densely populated Ijora Badia area
of Lagos, rendering over 20 families homeless.
The incident brings to 45 the number of fire that had occurred in
Lagos in the last one week.
Though, no life was lost in yesterday's inferno, said to have been
caused by a high tension wire which snapped and fell on one of the
buildings, two children of ages six and eight sustained burns.
Report said occupants of the makeshift buildings were jolted from
sleep at about 3am, following an alarm raised by one of them.
But initial effort to prevent the fire from spreading to other
buildings proved abortive, because of absence of water in the
community.
Desperate youths reportedly rushed to a canal close to the community,
from where they fetched water to douse the fire. But before their
arrival, the fire had reportedly spread to other buildings, making
their mission impossible.
However, when a source arrived the scene, this reporter was greeted by
hostility from the affected occupants, who claimed they had been
abandoned by government. The affected occupants further prevented this
reporter from taking shots of the scene and even threatened to beat
him up should he flout their directive. It took the intervention of
the community leader, simply identified as Abimbola and three other
elders in the community, to calm the agitated occupants.
Firstclass newsline, however, gathered that men of the Lagos State
Fire Service, arrived the community when they received the distress
call. But they were said to have been unable to gain access there,
owing to the deplorable state of the road.
The community leader said: "We do not have water in this community. A
company had to demolish some buildings to erect a borehole. But when
this incident happened, there was no water in the tank. The canal from
which we got water was supposed to be drainage. But it has not been
cleared for four years. Most times, our children fall inside. Two of
my children have fallen inside. We are using this opportunity to call
on government to pay attention to this community"
Efforts to speak to the affected occupants were met with brick wall as
they hurled insults at journalists that came to cover the incident.
However, Lagos State Fire Service Director, Rasaq Fadipe, told a
source that the affected makeshift buildings were 90, noting that no
life was lost.
Fadipe disclosed that over 35 distress calls were attended to in the
last one week, where properties worth several millions of naira were
destroyed.
Firstclassnewsline.net