Fire guts new Kasoa market

11/6/07
Page 48

Story: Emmanuel Bonney, Kasoa
Fire yesterday gutted property estimated at billions of cedis in a warehouse that was completely burnt down at the new Kasoa market in the Central Region.
The fire, which began at 4.25 a.m. destroyed items belonging to more than 500 traders at the new market located on the Kasoa-Bawjiase road.
Items destroyed in the warehouse included lace materials, wax prints, cooking utensils, used clothing, maize and gari.
It took the Fire Service about five hours to put out the fire which cause was yet to be established as of press time.
The razing down of the warehouse brought business activities of the day, which happened to be a market day, to a halt.
At the time of the visit of the Daily Graphic, the victims, who were mostly women, were sitting in front of their empty sheds apparently discussing the incident.
In tears, one of them, Madam Barikisu Adam, put the total cost of her lace and wax prints destroyed in the fire at GH¢1,200 (¢12 million).
The leader of the cloth dealers, who gave her name as Auntie Comfort, described the incident as a shock, since she took some items into the warehouse at 4.30 p.m. on Monday.
She said her items destroyed in the fire were valued at GH¢5000 (¢50 million).
Other victims, Araba Atta, Comfort Kwesie and Abiba Yamful, put the cost of their items destroyed at between GH¢1000 (¢10 million) and GH¢2,500 (¢25 million).
The traders made an appeal to the government to come to their aid, since most of them had taken loans from the banks for their business.
A security man at the market, Abraham Quansah, told the Daily Graphic that he saw smoke coming out of the warehouse at about 4.25 a.m. and raised an alarm.
“After calling the Fire Service, we rushed to the warehouse and broke the doors. In spite of the smoke we were able to salvage some of the items,” he said.
The Weija Fire Station Officer, Mr Peter Abbey, said it was too early to establish the cause of the fire, adding that the warehouse was not even connected with electricity.
He said additional Fire Service personnel were called from the Ghana National Fire Service headquarters, the Makola Fire Service Station and Swedru.
The Awutu-Efutu-Senya District Chief Executive, Mr Solomon Abam Quaye, said the Assembly would take an inventory of the items after which it would meet the victims to discuss ways of assisting them.