A fire raged through part of Equatorial Guinea’s capital and destroyed about 100 homes and left almost 1 000 people homeless, but claimed no lives, national radio reported on Monday.
A first house in the impoverished Ela Nguema district of the tropical Central African city caught fire when a candle set light to a pile of clothes. The blaze rapidly spread to other homes, ”which burned like straw”, the radio report said.
Electricity to the district had for several days been cut off, so people used candles. The fire brigade intervened swiftly, managed to bring the blaze under control and stop it spreading, the report said.
Malabo has only had a fire brigade since last year, when a force of about 100 men, helped by Belgian instructors, was trained in France and several West African countries.
As in many African working-class town districts, fires are relatively frequent because homes are built with no attention to safety rules and other regulations and residents tend to connect their houses to the power supply illegally.
In February last year, fire swept through Malabo’s New Building shanty town, razing more than 500 homes there. More than half the district was destroyed, but no casualties were reported. — Sapa-AFP