THE Rivers State secretariat in Port Harcourt was thrown into
confusion, on Tuesday, when a section of the tallest building in the
South-South region, the Point Block, went on fire.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that a minor fire spark had caused a huge
smoke on the fifth and sixth floors of the 17-floor building, which
house many government offices, including those of the Secretary to the
State Government (SSG).
According to witnesses, at about 11.00 a.m, smokes started coming out
of windows on the floors housing the SSG’s offices, a situation that
led to panic within and around the building.
Before long, the entire block had been emptied, as scared civil servants started fleeing the secretariat complex for the day.
It took the timely response of fire fighters from the states fire
service to restore calm, after which the source of the fire was traced
to an electrical fault.
“It is electrical fault from one of the control switch here. This is
not the first time this kind of thing was happening. It started with a
serious smoke from the fifth floor and people started running.
“It was work time, so people were in their offices, but when everyone
started shouting, those inside and those outside, everybody started
running down, that is why one woman collapsed and was rushed to the
hospital,” an eyewitness said.
Source: Nigerian Tribune
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