PICTURES – Deadly Fire Destroys Kumasi Central Market Again

A massive blaze gutted the Kumasi Central Market on Thursday evening. This is the third time the biggest market centre in the Ashanti region has been reduced to ashes this year.
Over 60 shops in the Dr. Mensah section of the market dedicated to selling used clothes have been razed down amidst wailing from helpless market women. The fire started around 8pm. The Dr. Mensah section of the market has suffered this loss twice after the market women rebuilt the place a year ago.
Shop owners and onlookers have thrown caution to the wind in an attempt to salvage something despite the presence of a combined team of police and some military personnel are having a hard time containing the wailing, angry and frustrated business shop owners.
Ashanti Regional Police Commander DCOP Kofi Boakye is calling for more fire tenders as three tenders already at the scene are not enough to combat the raging fire. In February this year, more than 100 shops were leveled by fire. It was followed by a May 11 incident in which about thirty shops were razed down in a Sunday dawn fire outbreak.
Erastus explains that committees have been set up to investigate each time there is a fire outbreak. Partial implementation of the recommendations has come to haunt the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly.
It was once recommended that the market be rewired. But the rewiring is yet to include the affected section of the market.
Again, access routes into the market have not be done as recommended, compounding the problem for the Fire Service to enter the raging market. They are fighting the fire from outside the market. Fire tenders speed out in search of water and drive back to douse the flames.
And although there are fire hydrants inside the market, none is working, leaving the traders counting their losses and rising debts, as they shout desperately for God’s intervention.