Two from among the 11 injured victims of the last Saturday Molete, Ibadan fire disaster who were hospitalized at the University College Hospital (UCH) had died, the hospital management confirmed yesterday afternoon.
Ayodeji Bobade, Head, Public Relations Unit of UCH, in a telephone chat, said the hospital was still trying its best to manage the remaining surviving victims, but worried that the level of burnt they suffered was very high.
It was equally gathered that the caretaker committee chairman of the Ibadan South East Local Government area under whose jurisdiction the affected area falls, Abass Bolaji Nojeemdeen was at the hospital to visit the victims and donated N300,000 for the treatment of the victims.
Official report disclosed that no fewer than 10 persons lost their lives and several properties destroyed in the inferno caused by a skidded tanker loaded with Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petroleum on Saturday evening under the Molete over head bridge and caught fire.
Meanwhile, survivors of the fire incident continued to count their losses yesterday when our reporter visited the scene where many of the shop owners whose wares were destroy were still in shock.
One of such victims was Subaru Ajayi, a building tools seller, who said he lost all his stock to the fire, which the carcasses of which were shown to our reporter, explaining that his other five colleagues, also sharing the same shop with him lost their wares which he estimated to cost over a million Naira.
One of his colleagues, Isiaka Bello, who also lost a Volkswagen Golf car to the fire lamented that they were caught in the incident because most times they would be forced to wait till late in the night since they hardly have good sales during the day.
Another victim, Abduraheem Aliu, selling electrical materials wondered where to start his life anew since the fire had consumed all he had, lamenting that, though, his stock only worth N100,000, that was all he had to cater for his family.
He disclosed that other colleagues with petty stock around his counter also lost all their goods, but maintained that none of the traders around the scene of the incident lost their lives, even though most of them had now gone bankrupt.
He said the dead victims were mostly commuters, who were there to board vehicles, tricycle or motorcycle to their respective destinations, as well as some private car owners, adding, “others are people who were not part of the market during the day, but took advantage of the night to do their businesses”.
