Three persons were injured yesterday in a gas explosion at 73 Orile Road, Tabon Tabon, Agege, Lagos.
No less than N150,000, a bag of rice, phones, gas, cylinders, mattress, fan, cloths and other household goods were lost to the inferno, which began around 9:30am and lasted till noon.
The injured – two boys, who came to fill their cylinders in a gas shop and another boy, Chijoke – who works in the gas shop, have been taken to the hospital.
When The Nation visited the house, sympathisers were around to condole with the victims. Many passers-by stopped at the house to find out the cause of the fire, while motorists peeped.
A food vendor, Mrs Kafayat Soliu, whose one room apartment got burnt, said she could not rescue anything from her room.
Mrs Soliu, who was at home when the incident happened, said: “I just finished fetching water and went into my room to change my cloth. I was in the kitchen dishing food when I suddenly heard the sound of a gas cylinder fell and it exploded immediately. I screened ‘my son’, he was in front of my room with another person who carried him and we all ran out of the house.
“Many people were already around the house, the fire had extended to my room, all I have, including my phones, clothes, television, the N100,000 that my husband kept in the wardrobe and the N50,000 I kept in my children’s wardrobe, a bag of rice, which I bought three days ago and everything inside the room, got burnt. I could not take a single pin out of the room. All we have left is this clothe I am wearing.
“The food, which I sell in front of the house, is also affected. The gas shop was razed. All the cylinders and everything in the shop got burnt. Both of us could not pick anything. I don’t know where my family and I would sleep tonight; we have no family around to spend the night with. I’m fed up; even my husband who just left here does not know what to do.”
Mrs Soliu appealed to the government for assistance.
“We have nowhere to go to or sleep,” she said.
Another victim, whose roof of her one room apartment also caught fire, Mrs Elizabeth Oke, said she learnt that the boys, who came to fill their gas, must have been using the gas before coming to fill it.
Mrs Oke said: “Their cylinder was hot and it exploded while Chijoke was filling it. The boys should have allowed the cylinders to get cold before coming to fill it.
The gas being filled while it was hot exploded and caught fire. Although we thank God that no life was lost. All our children had gone to school when the incident happened.”
She said the three boys were injured are in the hospital.
She said: “We don’t know if they will survive because I learnt that one of them was seriously burnt. The two boys that came to fill their gas are within age 12, we do not know them because they just came to fill their gas. But Chijoke should be in his late 20’s.
“A neighbour called to inform me. I was at Oshodi, on my way to buy some stuff at Eko market when I got the call and rushed home.
“It was the boys in the area that quenched the fire. We need government intervention because we have nowhere to sleep tonight; as you can see, we are all outside and we have no one to help us. The fire fighters came here without water.
“They just came here, expecting us to give them money for them to look for water to quench the fire. It was the house next to us that helped us out because they sell water there. The fire fighters came for nothing because they did nothing. It was police officers that later chased them away since they were not able to do anything. We are not sure of which fire fighters came. Gas shouldn’t be sold at residential buildings. They should be at the filling station and anyone whose wants to fill gas should go and do so at the filling station. They should stop the landlord from renting the house as a gas shop because it is dangerous,” she said.
