A fire outbreak at Apremdo, a suburb of Takoradi in the Western Region of the Republic of Ghana, has left two fuel tankers completely burnt to ashes with a two- year-old boy reportedly dead.
According to eyewitnesses, the two diesel tanker drivers went to discharge fuel consignment to a yet to be identified fuel station, but after discharging, went to Apremdo to sell the surplus to some wayside dealers in the area.
They explained that in the course of siphoning the surplus fuel, the tankers caught fire burning them into ashes.
The fire caught a nearby kiosk burning a two-year-old boy who was asleep in the structure.
“We can’t tell whether the fire was from the local restaurant (chop bar) in the area,” an eyewitness said.
The fire also destroyed over seven container stores.
Some eyewitnesses, who spoke on a local radio station, Adom FM, blamed the personnel of the Western Regional Fire Command for failing to respond early to their distress calls.
According to them, they made distress calls to the fire station which is close to the scene but they arrived an hour later.
They claimed that when the fire fighters arrived, the latter for about an hour before said they had no water in the fire tender to douse the inferno.
The cause of the fire outbreak, which took the Fire Service personnel over an hour to bring under control, is still unknown.
The Western Regional Fire Command PRO, DO3 Emmanuel Bonney, commenting on the incident, said: “The boy who was burnt into ashes was sleeping in one of the mobile money sales containers when the fire broke out.
“We are now trying to get the auntie to confirm if the boy is a relation,” he concluded.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
