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Fire guts eight-storey building in Dar
2008-05-09 09:24:15
By Austin Beyadi
Fire gutted an eight-storey residential building located along Mahiwa Street in Dar es Salaam`s Kariakoo popular business district yesterday morning.
Luckily, the inferno caused no human loss as people occupying flats in the building were successful evacuated before the blaze had spread further to other parts of the building.
When this reporter arrived at the scene of the fire at around 11am, he found fire fighters from the city and private fire brigades working hard to put it off. However, it kept burning for more than 14 hours later.
Rescue operations at the scene included fire fighters from private firms, city council, Tanzania Ports Authority, Tanzania People`s Defence Force and Julius Nyerere International Airport.
An eye witness on the scene of the incident, Hamid Ashraf, said the fire broke out at around midnight yesterday and people who first saw it helped in rescuing the occupants.
He said one of the tenants who stayed on the first floor saw a huge plume of black smoke and when he checked through the window, he realized that the bottom segment of the building, which was being used as a warehouse for motor vehicle tires and batteries, was already on fire.
On sighting the fire, Ashraf said, the tenant alerted other tenants, who quickly escaped without any harm, and they called one of the private fire brigades.
Ashraf said that the fire brigade responded quickly, but unfortunately the firefighters could not put out the fire.
However, they managed to rescue a few tyres and batteries from the warehouse on the basement floor.
He said the city fire brigade also responded quickly enough, but the fire was too big and difficult to handle.
The owner of the warehouse, Mastermile Artan, said at the time the fire broke out the warehouse had six containers of tires and batteries and that around a hundred tyres were rescued.
Around midday yesterday fire firefighters from the TPDF`s Airwing arrived at the scene and worked hard to put it out, but until late in the afternoon their efforts were yet to be successful.
Our sister evening paper yesterday quoted Ilala regional police commander Faustine Shilogile as saying that the building belongs to a businessman named Nile Altars (45).
He said that preliminary investigations had shown that the fire was caused by an electric fault and that technicians from the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) had disconnected power to allow firefighters perform their duty smoothly.
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