One Dies, Seven Injured as Fire Guts Lagos Market

Goods worth millions of naira were destroyed on Tuesday when a fire broke out in a building at the popular Balogun Market in the Lagos Island area of Lagos State.

The fire started at about 9.37am.

It was also gathered that the inferno was put out through the joint efforts of emergency responders.

The National Emergency Management Agency, in a statement, disclosed that one person died while seven were injured in the fire.

It said the fire started from a five-storey building located on 32, Gbajumo Street, Lagos Island and spread to a three-storey building beside it.

“One fatality was recorded with seven persons injured,” the statement read.

But the Director of Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, Margaret Adeseye,  in a separate statement, said five persons were injured in the fire.

The statement read in part, “The scenario which involved combustible female shoes and sandals was agog with traders salvaging their wares and bystanders trying to catch the glimpse.

“The usually clumsy terrain quickly became inconvenient and created an impediment for rapid fire fighting operations which is now at dampening down of pocket of fires within the affected structures.

“The operations without any casualty however recorded minor injuries to about five persons who were treated and discharged on the spot by the medical emergency.”