A multi-million Naira palm kernel oil extracting factory located at Onuebonyi, a suburb of Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital was on Sunday razed by fire, destroying palm kernel worth over N200 million and refined and unrefined oil, a bus and extracting machines.
Confirming the incident to LEADERSHIP, the Executive Director of the industry, Mr Emmanuel Alinchi said he noticed fire and smoke emission in the industry at about 1:17am, noting that before the arrival of the men of fire service, the entire structure had been engulfed.
“At about 1:17am, I was outside and when I noticed the smell of smoke, before I could go inside the industry, the fire has engulfed everywhere. I immediately alerted the Fire Service and they arrived the industry on time and tried their best, but the fire was much. They came with their tankers. In fact they brought filled tanker of water 4 times but the damage had been done.
“The Fire Service team tried to put off the fire from 1:40am till 8am. The worth of goods destroyed by the fire is over N170million because we just offloaded our goods. All the extracting machines are all burnt. The situation is so devastating and this industry is our source of livelihood,” Alinchi narrated.
He appealed to the Ebonyi State Government to come to his aid, adding that the fire outbreaks has thrown him out of business, lamenting that there is no other source of livelihood to sustain himself and his family.
A relative of the victim, Mr. Hillary Alinchi said the cause of the fire incident was not known as it happened in the night.
Hillary emphasised that the fire would have spread to other private buildings in the area if not for the resilience of the fire fighters who arrived early.
He said about fifty workers had lost their jobs as a result of the inferno and appealed to Governor Francis Nwifuru to invoke the spirit of People’s Charter of Needs to resuscitate the industry.
The Director, State Fire Service, Mr. Raphael Ibiam said his team arrived on time but decried that the industry was jam-packed with inflammable materials.
He however pointed out that no life was lost in the incident.
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