Lagos Fire: Survivors Recount Experience

Oluwaseun Ayantokun, Lagos - 17.05.2008

I only had my tiny towel tied round my chest. My husband had gone to work and I was preparing to go out when I suddenly heard a big noise. And I rushed out through the back door because the fire had taken control of the front of our house.

‘’My children followed me, while I also managed to carry my baby’’ said Mrs Yetunde Owonikoko, one of the occupants of the house located at No 24 Isolo Road, now carried to Alimosho Local Government Secretariat for temporary relief after the house was razed down

That was one of the lucky survivors of the Ijegun fire incident on Thursday wher over forty people died. Also, another survivor, Mrs Bola Adeleke, though was grateful that she and her children escaped, she felt sorry for one Iya Abeeb, her co-tenant who was seriously injured.

She noted, ‘’Her four-month old baby was burnt to death. The baby was was named Segun.’’ The woman who said she was a textile dealer, further revealed that she had lost all her goods in the house to the inferno, including money. She said it would take some time before she could pull herself together to give an estimate of her loss.

Meanwhile, chairman of the Lagos State Branch of the Nigerian Red Cross Society, Deacon Timothy Oladele, has said that the number of the dead victims of the fire disaster at Ijegun in Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State has risen to 50.

Speaking on Friday at the site of the disaster, he said about 56 people had also been treated in different hospitals in the state including Igando General Hospital, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, and some private hospitals by the society and families of the victims.

He said some of the victims rushed to the hospitals had also died, thus, increasing the number from 39 to 50. However, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Mrs Adebisi Serah Sosan, in company of the Commissioners for Special Duties and Health, Drs Tola Kasali and Jide Idris respectively, put the official figure at 15 and the number of victims with burns at government hospitals at 17.

Speaking also at the site around 9.40 am on Friday, the deputy governor thanked all and sundry that contributed to controlling and putting out the fire and so reducing the number of casualties.