One feared dead as fire guts duplex in Lagos

A fire incident which has tragically claimed one life, injured many others and destroyed property worth millions of naira, occurred in the early hours of Thursday in Ketu area of Lagos.
 
According to the Public Affairs Officer of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Adebayo Kehinde, the unfortunate incident occurred in the early hours of the morning.
 
“The agency received a distress alert, via the emergency toll free number 767/112 at about 3.10 am today 9th February, 2017, regarding a fire incident at No. 7 Jemigbon Street, Apollo Estate, off Elebiju, Ketu, Lagos,

and this prompted the immediate activation of the Agency’s Emergency Response Team including the LRU Fire Unit and the Lagos State Fire Service to the scene of the incident, and prevented the spread of the inferno to other buildings in the estate.
 
“Preliminary investigation conducted by the agency’s ERT at the scene of the incident revealed that a duplex which was converted to flats- five mini flat, a two-bedroom flat, a four-bedroom flat- was gutted by fire as a result of power surge from one of the mini flats on the first floor of the building, which then escalated to other flats in the building.”
 
He said further investigation revealed that the inferno which engulfed the entire building got one adult woman entrapped and severely burnt.

He said the body was recovered by the Agency’s ERT and was handed over to the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit, SEHMU and has since been deposited at the Lagos Mainland General Hospital Mortuary.
 
The woman was later identified as a staff of the National Open University of Nigeria.
 
The General Manager LASEMA sympathized with the family of the deceased, but however emphasised the incoporation of safety measures into building construction such as provision of more than one emergency exit route and installation of surge protectors and fire alarm systems to avoid unessary loss of lives and property to fire incidents such as this.