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Fire Engulfed ABS Stadium Gymnasium Hall Building In Kaduna
By Usman Nasidi; Kaduna.
An unidentified fire outbreak has engulfed in the sports and Volleyball section of the Ahmadu Bello Stadium (ABS) Gymnasium Hall in Kaduna state on Monday morning.
The blaze which started at about 10am, took at least almost two hours before the firefighters were able to deal with it and with the help of nearby communities including those on the field with the intention of having an exercise.
One of the biggest surprise during the incident was that of water shortage by the firefighters and being fetched from a well by people around and so as to pump into the Tank of the state ambulance which is trying to curtail the situation which was suspected to be caused by an power outage.
Umar Usman, an eyewitnesses explained that, this was a major challenge as the situation was tense and the firefighting staffs were trying to curtail the blaze, but there equipment was inadequate and prevent them from carrying out the work properly.
He added that the first vehicle brought by the state agency did not deserve to be used for such purposes and which is why the communities were trying to help by fetching water and pouring it into the truck tank from them to be able to continue discharging their duties.
The chairman Ahmadu Bello Stadium Gideon Mathew disclosed that they were unaware of the cause of the fire, but would investigate because most of the places that caught fire at the time are the changing room which was empty and no one in it.
He said: “At the moment, no one is injured or hurt, although there are some Volleyball players who are expected to represent Nigeria soon in the building, but everyone survived the fire.”
Meanwhile, Mrs. Chizoba Ekemberi, an event planner who rents an office in the building expressed her grief over the loss of properties of almost 10 million Naira due to the fire that broke out.
She added that the major source of the fire outbreak was undisclosed, but it was alleged that the incident was due to a power outage, although she wasn’t around when it started but was informed of the situation which led to her rushing down to check on the situation, which was attended by firefighters and members of the general public but to no avail.
In his remarks, Superintendent Mai Lafiya of the Federal Government Fire Service, said that they were not informed of the incident early until almost about 45 minutes when the fire started, but immediately they arrival, his men swing into action to curtail the situation on ground and were successful.
He said: “A lot of people don’t call our local numbers because they don’t know them. Instead, they called on the Toll Free numbers that are the emergency numbers for the country, so we may not be informed early if the centre is too busy because they are meant for all rescue response teams that comprises of other forces.”
He stressed the need for people to make use of their local numbers that are written on there trucks and are meant as direct link that will get there attention immediately when there’s any incident.
