Senators on Thursday observed a minute silence in memory of all the persons that died in the fuel tanker fire incident that destroyed a major market in Onitsha, Anambra State last month.
The minute silence observed by the Senate was to mourn the victims of the fire incident and sympathise with the bereaved.
The inferno at Upper Iweka, Onitsha area of the state led to the destruction of the famous Ochanja market, killing a number of people, including a woman and her child, and damaged property.
The lawmakers questioned why the fire raged for more than four hours and the men of the Nigeria Fire Service could not speedily curtail it.
To proffer answers, the Senate has urged the Federal government to quickly unravel the reason(s) why the firemen in the state failed to respond to the emergency.
The motion on the tragic fire disaster in Onitsha was sponsored by Senator Ifeanyi Uba and presented in plenary on Wednesday.
According to Uba, the loss of the buildings, shops and premises that were razed by the fire has affected the livelihood of the people.
Uba recalled that in July this year, a similar incident occurred in Benue State and that between 2015 and 2018, several of such ugly occurrences happened through accidents caused by heavily articulated vehicles plying the highways.
To end the road crashes that result in fire disaster, Uba opined that there should be enforcement of traffic safety rules by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and the police across the country.
In their separate contributions, Senator Stella Odua (Anambra North) and Uche Ekunife (Anambra Central) described the incident as devastating and said the urgent need had arisen for the government to ensure that all markets in the country had fire service stations to prevent reoccurrence of fire outbreaks.
Meanwhile, the Senate has urged the Federal government to include financial support in the package to the affected persons to enable them to restart their businesses.
Also, it said it would send a special delegation to the affected areas to commiserate with the victims and entire people of Anambra State.
