An official of Transcorp Metropolitan Hotel in
Calabar has disclosed to CrossRiverWatch that this evening’s fire
outbreak may have cost the prestigious hotel over 300 million Naira in
damages.
The official said the four power generating plants worth
over 300 million naira in the power house of the Hotel were completely
razed in an inferno.
The fire which started at about 4pm was said to
have been ignited when the machine used in transferring diesel from the
storage tank to one of the generating plants caught fire during
preparations for the Valentine Dinner Night being hosted by the hotel
for lovers and guests in the hotel.
The official of the hotel who
said he was not authorized to speak to the press told CrossRiverWatch
that the staff of the electrical department of the hotel were filling
diesel into one of the pilot generating sets “when the machine used in
taking diesel from the storage tank caught fire and this spread rapidly
to the power generating house forcing the staff to leave the place”.
The
official said an estimated 300 million naira may have been lost to the
inferno. “Each of those generating sets cost over 80 million naira and
the house is also in the neighborhood of twenty million so if you put
the entire amount together, it is in excess of 300 million naira”.
An
official of the Federal Airport Rescue and Fire Service, Eno Ikpi Otu
said the fire caused much damage because it took the truck deployed from
Margaret Ekpo International Airport a long time to arrive the scene to
combat the fire because “the road was clogged by motorists who were not
willing to clear the road even when they saw that we were rushing to
salvage a situation”.
Mr Ikpi said though no life was lost in the
inferno enormous damage was done to the generator house and the
generating plants which were completely razed. “We would have brought
the fire under control before the damage done was much but because
people were not ready to allow us pass, we got here a little too late”.
An
Akwa Ibom Mass Transit bus that was coming from Uyo to Calabar and
arrived the place at the peak of the fire was lifted off the road by the
impact of the explosion from one of the generating plants; causing it
to crash into the drainage by the side of the road.
Mr Rekpene
Bassey, the Cross River State Security Adviser who was at the scene of
the incident said the fire outbreak was unfortunate on a day the hotel
and the state had made so much preparation for the Valentine Night
Dinner to be hosted in the hotel. “The fire outbreak on a day like this
is unfortunate considering the preparations made by the hotel and our
state for the Valentine’s Day Dinner in the Hotel; many guests have come
from far and wide to fete their loved ones here”.
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