A Lagos Island fire has claimed the lives of three people, including a China-based cloth merchant identified as Obum, after a section of the Great Nigeria Insurance House plaza collapsed during an inferno at Balogun Market.
The fire broke out on Wednesday on the fourth floor of the 25-storey building and rapidly spread to the sixth floor before engulfing other parts of the structure and nearby buildings. In the course of the blaze, a detached section of the plaza—already weakened by the fire—gave way, trapping traders and market assistants beneath the rubble.
Emergency responders recovered two adult males from the debris on Friday, at about 11:03am and 12:03pm respectively. A third victim, a female adult, was later confirmed dead.
A trader at the market, Zacheaus Afolayan, identified one of the male victims as Obum, a businessman who resides in China and returns to Nigeria during festive periods to trade.
“When his body was released later that day, we confirmed it was Obum. His body was intact, and his family has taken him to Anambra for burial,” Afolayan said.
He explained that Obum had been evacuating his goods as the fire spread and had nearly finished when he returned to retrieve the last items. It was at that point, Afolayan said, that the weakened section of the plaza collapsed on his shop.
According to Afolayan, Obum was initially alive after the collapse and managed to place phone calls from beneath the rubble in the early hours of Thursday.
“He called me around 2am and said he was trapped with others. He kept begging us not to let him die, saying no one would care for his children,” he recounted. “He called again in the afternoon, but his voice was much weaker.”
Meanwhile, relatives of other victims believed to be trapped have appealed for increased support and faster intervention to aid emergency responders still working at the scene.