The burnt wooden structures
Over 30 residents at Meridian Area at Community 1, Tema were rendered homeless yesterday when fire gutted their cubicles.
Television sets, bags, mattresses, mobile phones, among others, were completely burnt when fire spread through about 26 wooden structures.
No casualties were recorded, but the cause of the fire is not yet known.
All the occupants of the wooden structures in the area behind the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) were not present to retrieve some of their items.
Fire tenders from Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) and the Tema Regional branch of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) helped to put out the inferno, which lasted about two hours.
An occupant of one of the wooden structures told DAILY GUIDE that “we have lost several properties which we cannot ascertain the total cost involved. After counting, we have noticed that 26 cubicles were completely burnt.”
D.O Percy Annang, Deputy Tema Metropolitan Fire Officer, explained that the office received a distress call at about 1:26 pm, requesting for assistance to put out the ferocious fire.
He noted that putting out the fire was problematic because of the congestion at the place.
The Deputy Fire Officer blamed the authorities, especially the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), for allowing the slum to flourish.
“I believe in a metropolitan like this, we don’t have to encourage slum like this, we don’t have to encourage it at all. I believe we could salvage a lot of things if we had complete access to the place.
“When it comes to standard firefighting, we need to have direct access to the fire scene, but in this instance we were impeded by a number structures at the slum, he stated.
According to him, investigations would continue to ascertain the cause of the fire.
From Vincent Kubi, Tema