A 4-year-old girl, Faridat Shittu, is battling to survive at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, (LASUTH) Ikeja after sustaining a high degree of burns during a fire disaster that gutted her parent’s house in Ojokoro area of the state.
Aside from the girl, three other adults including the grandfather, grandmother and the uncle sustained varying degrees of burns from the inferno that emanated from a cooking gas used their house.
On Monday, the girl and other victims were said to have been rushed to the hospital yesterday after they were rescued at 1, Odubanwo Street. Off Olaniyi Street, Gbinrinmi in Ojokoro Local Council Development Area.
The whole building of 14 rooms including shops completely went down in rubbles due to the intensity of the explosion thereby rendering 11 families homeless.
Confirming the incident, the South West Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Ibrahim Farinloye, said the grandmother of the little girl was frying meat at about 2pm yesterday when the incident occurred.
Farinloye stated that suddenly the oil caught flame and efforts to control it proved abortive, leading to explosion of the cooking gas.
According to him, the girl was sleeping in the room when the incident happened on Sunday at about 2 pm but she was rescued successfully by some community members and other injured victims.
“The whole building of 14 rooms including shops completely went down in rubbles due to the intensity of the explosion thereby rendering 11 families homeless.
“The landlord of the victims, Pa Femi Odubanwo Solomon, disclosed that neighbours saved him from dying in the incident as he was initially trapped and is presently squatting in a church opposite his destroyed house.”
