Val’s Day Tragedy, Fire Takes Down Part Of Cal Transcorp Metro

In circumstances that are yet to be made clear, parts of Calabar’s Transcorp Metro Hotel, this evening went up in flames to the consternation of onlookers and the general public, calitown.com can reveal. The inferno which lasted for more than two hours, completely ate up the two giant-size generators servicing the hotel, throwing all of the three star hotel into darkness.

Staff and security men at the scene of the fire

When calitown.com arrived the scene of the incident, fire fighters from the CRS Fire Service were battling to contain the fire, eventhough it was clear that the men were ill-equipped to tackle a fire of this magnitude.

On condition of anonymity, one source told calitown.com that, “the fire was not started by anybody, an electrical fault may have caused it but had the Fire Service responded promptly to calls made to it, the damage would have been minimal and not the complete loss of two power generators and the facility housing both generators”. Another source present at the scene of the fire, corraborated the information that the response of the Fire Service was not swift. But in an inditement too of the hotel’s management, another source submitted that, “these Metro people did not even have capable fire fighting equipment as a first line of defence. I mean if they did, they would have contained the fire before support from the Fire Service arrives.

At the time of filing this report, heavy security presence was in place at the hotel, located in the heart of town, to ward off miscreants who would have had a field day carting away valuables from the hotel. Meanwhile, as a result of the comotion around the Big Qua area of the hotel, an Akwa Ibom Transport Company, AKTC, owned 18-seater bus with registration number XA 946 ZLL, veered off the road and plunged into the deep drains opposite Metro. The driver of the bus informed calitown.com that he experienced brake failure and had to steer the bus off the road and into the drains to avoid another disaster on the very busy road. No lives were lost.