An official of the Nigerian Railway Corporation has explained why some staff of the organisation battled a raging fire on a coach on its Warri-Itakpe route with bare hands.
A viral video, on Wednesday, showed some staff of the NRC battling a raging fire on a coach with shrubs cut by the rail line.
In the video, one of the staff was heard telling others to give up on putting out the fire, as he said it would run its full course before going out itself.
According to a report by The Nation newspaper, the incident occurred on Tuesday on one of the newly procured Warri-Itakpe standard gauge train coaches.
The highly credible newspaper quoted a staff of the NRC as saying: “The cause of the fire is still unknown as we speak, but it has finally been put out.
“It is one of the new trains that run scheduled trips between Warri and Itakpe.”
When asked by The Nation Correspondent why they were battling the fire with shrubs, the staff said most of the train coaches don’t have fire extinguishers fitted in them.
“Most of the train coaches do not have fire extinguishers, so the workers used what was available to quench the fire, even though a substantial part of the coach was burnt,” the staff told The Nation.
The spokesman of the NRC, Mahmoud Yakub, said investigation was ongoing to unravel the cause of the fire incident.
Yakub told The Nation: “The Managing Director would be addressing the media on the cause of the fire but investigation is ongoing to know the cause of the fire on one of the coaches of the Warri-Itakpe train.”
https://youtu.be/rvRUupnsacA