Christmas cheer turned into sorrow as fire razed down No. 8 Amangwu Lane, Opposite White House, Umudioka Awka.
According to reports, the visibly shaken Landlord of the building, Mr. Ikechukwu Umeh revealed that fire started and spread to the entire building of fifteen rooms and two sitting rooms
in the early hours of Saturday December 24 and consumed the whole building.
The landlord was was already out for his business when he started getting calls that his house was on fire.
Tearfully, he said that the house was his entire life’s effort and he lost all his valuable properties and that of his tenants.
It was reported that the children of one of his tenants ignited the fire when they were playing with match sticks and lighted clothes in their room, which quickly spread and consumed the entire building.
A tenant in one of the blocks of the building, Mrs. Chinyere Egburuche remarked that she was indoors watching a movie when her restless child forced her outside for a bath where she discovered the fire.
She said she immediately raised an alarm but nothing could be done before the entire building was razed.
She also lamented that she could not salvage anything, as her valuables, work tools and documents were destroyed.
Miss Lilian Egburuche, who could not hold back emotion and tears, painfully narrated how she lost everything to the fire, just a day after loosing her goods for sale at Onitsha in the hands of thieves.
The father of the kids who were said to have ignited the Fire, Mr. Obinna Woti said he wasn’t home when the incident happened and expressed his devastation over the incident as another tenant Mrs. Eunice Uchenna said they lost everything.