FIRE RAZED parts of the Asankragwa main market in the Amenfi West District of the Western Region last Tuesday, destroying items running into thousands of Ghana cedis.
The cause of the ravaging fire which destroyed about ten shops, was not immediately known.
The entire Asankragwa town was thrown into a state of shock and sadness as most of the residents who plied their business activities in the market claimed their entire trading capital had been wiped off.
Some of the traders who had closed their shops at the time trooped to the market centre when news of the fire outbreak got to them.
They attempted to salvage some of their wares from their shops but to no avail.
Most of them could not help it but burst into uncontrollably tears as they assessed how much they had lost to the inferno.
Fire fighters later arrived at the scene to douse the inferno.
There was no casualty, but items destroyed in the shops included clothes, electrical gadgets, bags of rice, sewing machines, alcoholic beverages and cash among others.
The fire outbreak, according to eyewitnesses, occurred in the evening at about 5:30pm on Tuesday, June 15, 2021 and raged on for a while before personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service arrived to help quench the inferno.
They narrated that the fire started from an unknown source, and before they could do anything about the situation, the entire market was in flames.
One of the affected shop owners, Robert Annor, who deals in alcoholic beverages, indicated that he stocked his shop with expensive liquors to sell a day before the incident, adding that all the items had been burnt.
He said, “None of the liquors were sold before the fire broke out. About four shops including mine have all been destroyed completely. We had a lot of things in the shop. In my shop for instance I can say I have items worth more than GH¢50,000.00 that have all been burnt.”
Some of the residents rushed to the scene in an attempt to try and help quench the fire but their effort yielded no positive results. But personnel of the Fire Service arrived later to put off the fire.
Meanwhile, the personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service in the area have begun investigations to ascertain what really caused the fire outbreak.
FROM Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi