Blue Line Rail not destroyed by fire, says LAMATA

The Lagos Area Metropolitan Authority (LAMATA) has said that the oil tanker fire incident that occured at Marina on Tuesday did not destroy the Lagos Blue Line Rail infrastructure.

Kola Ojelabi, consultant, corporate communication, LAMATA, made the confirmation to dispel reports that the rail line facility had been razed by the fire incident.

“Preliminary test carried out by the contractor, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), shows that the pier of the rail trail was not affected by the fire,” Ojelabi said.

BusinessDay reports that there was a fire incident involving an oil tanker transloading diesel into a barge on the lagoon on the outer Marina under one of the piers for the Lagos Rail Mass Transit (LRMT) Blue Line at Marina.

“The fire was said to have been ignited by a petrol-powered generator deployed to pump diesel into the barge from a tanker parked by pier 27.

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The fire was eventually put off by a combined team of firemen from the Lagos State Fire Service, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Fire Service, and the Federal Fire Service.

The police were also present to incident the fire outbreak and worked collaboratively to ascertain the ownership of the fuel tanker and the barge.

“The Lagos State government and Lagos Metropolitan Authority wish to assure Lagosians that the Blue Line infrastructure is safe and LAMATA will indeed continue with the testing phase of the operation of the trains and civil infrastructure, with a view to educating members of the public on how to interact with the rail system”, Ojelabi said in a statement.