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"Sodom and Gomorrah" in flames
Accra, Sept. 29, Ghanadot/GNA - Fire on Friday swept through
parts of "Sodom and Gomorrah", a sprawling shanty town in
Accra, destroying several million cedis worth of property
and claiming a number of lives.
According to eyewitness accounts, the fire started at about
1500 hours at a popular spot in the area being used as a
brothel, and spread to other structures, after efforts to
extinguish the initial source had failed.
When the GNA got to the scene, almost everything in that
part of the vicinity had been completely razed to the
ground, with resident scavenging through the smouldering
fire to salvage what was left of their "properties".
A resident, Opoku Ntiamoah, told the GNA that when the fire
initially started, the Fire Service was called in to remedy
the situation. He said that two fire tenders arrived on the
scene but the personnel after fruitless attempts to put out
the fire abandoned the mission because of lack of access to
the area.
Thus, the fire, aided by the direction of the wind,
destroyed everything in its path from the embankment of the
Korle lagoon to almost the Agbogbloshie market road before
the Fire Service personnel could have enough access to put
out the fire.
Ntiamoah attributed the severity of the damage to the
combustible nature of the materials used in putting up the
haphazardly-arranged structures in that area that denied
access even to a "wheelbarrow".
This is the second time in the last four months that fire
had devastated the area, which government intends to
relocate the residents, whose activities are seen as the
main pollutant of the Korle lagoon that was being dredged.
Most residents who had by then left for their respective
jobs, returned soon as the heard the news on the airwaves,
but there was little they could do to salvage their
belongings because of the fierce fire.
As the GNA went about, it came across a body burnt beyond
recognition.
Residents identified the body as that of a male who had
taken medicine and was fast asleep when the fire started.
GNA
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