Shop owners are counting their losses to a pre-dawn fire at a shopping mall in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Eyewitnesses said the fire started Wednesday before 3 am on the ground floor of the one-story building on Ligali Ayorinde Street.
Some people said they tried to put it out but were unsuccessful.
“The fire started before 3 o’clock,” a witness told Nigeria Info.
“It started downstairs from an electrical junction box. There’s a junction box where all the lights are controlled. That is where it started.
“It migrated from there and moved up to the battery shops, and from there to the tire and plumbing plastics shops.”
Firefighters from the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service later arrived and started the operation to put out the inferno.
Three backup trucks arrived after the water in the first truck finished, according to the witness.
“One initially came but the water finished. The fire increased before the others arrived.”
Traders frantically removed their goods from the mall as the fire raged and the firefighters battled it.
The fire has been put out.
