A midnight fire on Saturday gutted a shopping plaza in the popular spare parts market in the Ladipo area of Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria.
It was discovered that the fire incident occurred early Saturday morning and affected a one-storey building, the Aguiyi Ironsi Plaza, in the market before dawn.
The fire was aided by combustible Items such as second-hand engines, motor gearboxes, steering racks, shock absorbers, propellers, fuel pumps among others which were destroyed in the inferno.
Over 220 shops at the Ladipo market were affected while about 320 traders and several apprentices have been rendered jobless as a result of the incident, a post-emergency impacts assessment indicates.
Many shop owners have no insurance cover on their businesses despite efforts on awareness creation and sensitisation on the needs to imbibe the culture of insurance coverage of the business outfits.
Although no injury or life was lost in the incident, emergency responders such as the State Fire Service, LASEMA, NEMA, Police acted promptly to contain the fire.
NEMA has on several occasions admonished the traders to mainstream the disaster risk reduction especially assisting in the drilling of fire hydrants in strategic areas in the market.