An early morning fire Thursday razed the Hospital Road Electrical Market, Aba. The fire destroyed goods estimated at over N900 million.

A shop owner in the market, Paul Nwaka, told NAN that the incident happened around midnight.

Mr Nwaka said that the fire was ignited by sparks from an electric line lying over the market stalls.

According to him, it happened when power was restored on the line and the sparks fell on the roof of some shops, leading to full blown fire.

He said that when he was alerted, he ran down to the market and made frantic attempts to rescue some of his goods.

Mr Nwaka said that they invited fire fighters but regretted that they could not come until the fire had engulfed the entire shops.

He alleged that the fire men complained that they did not have diesel to move their equipment to the scene.

He also said that the traders raised some money for them to buy diesel but that they did not come until about 3:00 a.m. when the fire had escalated.

The Aba Fire Service Commander, Belenta Belenta, confirmed the incident.

Mr Belenta said that they received calls from people in the area “after the fire had taken root”.

“They called my men and they went but some hoodlums, who wanted to loot the shops, stopped them from reaching the scene, while the fire raged.

“They had to go through another route to get to the scene,” he said.

(NAN)