It was a scene of weeping and wailing at the premises of Onitsha general hospital over the weekend as a fire incident at the mortuary section burnt over 400 deposited bodies, many of them to ashes and therefore beyond recognition.
The Saturday fire, which lasted about three hours, razed the mortuary building located behind the hospital facility.
The fire was said to have emanated from a burning bush behind the morgue.
It was reported that when the fire started, mortuary attendants poured water mixed with detergent to douse the flame.
However, when the fire escalated, they called the state fire service which arrived late, thereby making the situation worse.
At the scene of the incident, hundreds of relatives of the deposited corpse were seen wailing and lamenting the unfortunate development which they said had denied their loved ones befitting burial.
Some, who had come to carry their corpses for burial, burst into tears when they saw that the mortuary was in ruins.
Speaking on the incident, the operator of the morgue, who identified himself simply as Emma, said, “I had gone to Awka to bring some corpses. While I was there, I was informed about the fire on the phone and I rushed down immediately. Before I arrived here, the fire had done a lot of damage.
“The fire burnt both fresh and abandoned corpses packed inside the morgue. The chemicals we used in preserving the corpses must have aggravated the fire. The chemicals are highly inflammable and they burn faster than fuel.”
The Director of the Anambra State Fire Service, Mr. Martin Agbili, who confirmed that the fire was from bush burning, added that firefighters battled to stop the fire from spreading to surrounding buildings.
“We received a distress call from the General Hospital, Onitsha, and we deployed our men and the firefighters’ equipment to put out the fire.
“We found out that the fire came through the bush and we have been telling people to ensure that they cut the bushes around their houses and avoid bush burning because this harmattan period, fire can come from anywhere, even from a far distance, because every surface is dry and inflammable,” he said.
He noted that though there was no loss of lives, those who tried to put out the fire sustained varying degrees of burns.