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By Ike Uchechukwu, CALABAR

The popular Ika Ika Oqua market a.k.a Marian Market in Calabar was yesterday gutted by fire that destroyed goods worth millions of Naira.

Vanguard gathered that the fire, which affected the fruit section with over 30 lockup shops, took men of Federal Fire Service five hours to put it out.

Vanguard also learned that hoodlums wanted to use the opportunity to loot shops, but security agencies on ground cordoned off the area and ensured everywhere was secured.

One of the affected business owners, who gave her name as Mrs Grace Asuquo, said she was only consoled by the fact that there was still hope as long as she was alive.

She said: “I have lost money today, but I know I will recover all. Almost everything in my shop got destroyed by the fire, but I thank God, once I have life, I will recover from this too. This is not the first time.

“We have been experiencing this consecutively for three years or more, last year it was still a gas explosion, the other time it was a power surge, we want to appeal to the SEMA, government to help us.”

The Commanding Officer, Calabar Command of the Federal Fire Service, Mrs Olumayowa Olomola, confirmed that the fire incident was caused by a gas explosion in one of the lockup shops.

She said the command received a distress call at about 2.40 am, yesterday, about the fire outbreak and swung into action immediately.

His words: ”The fire started from one of the shops where the occupant, a woman who was boiling beans, slept off.

“The woman in question had another cylinder filled up with gas in her shop and that led to the explosion when what she was cooking got burnt.

“There was no presence of other fire services besides that of the Federal Fire Service and it was not until around 7 am before we were able to put out the fire.”