A devastating gas explosion occurred on Saturday 4th of January 2025 at around Big Tree Junction, Orazi Port Harcourt leaving so many including children with severe five-degree burns and a five-year-old dead the next day.
The fire spread into neighbouring shops. The explosion according to an eye witness started in a lockup shop where a man named Chidi was running a business of refilling gas, selling cylinders and welding cylinders.
She said, “The explosion happened in the shop, the guy sells gas. He sells cylinders, he also welds inside. I don’t know how he does it but he fixes pot, cylinders and the rest and it’s a lockup shop where all the shops are connected. So the explosion happened around his shop and it affected everybody around him, close to 20 persons are critically injured and we lost one of the daughters of his neighbor today Sunday. She’s 5-6 years old, but the rest are critically injured.
The scene was nothing short of horrific, witnesses recounted harrowing tales of people, their bodies ravaged by flames, being rushed to the nearby Harley clinic. Harley, overwhelmed by the severity of the burns, swiftly transferred them to military hospital. However they too transferred the injured to Braithwaite Memorial Hospital (BMH), now Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, while some were admitted to Sonabel Clinic, where they are currently undergoing treatment.
The alleged perpetrator of the gas explosion after sustaining some burns though not severe as that of his neighbors’ was said to have fled the scene through his back door by jumping a fence into another compound, according to eye witness, the community and others had warned him about the dangers of carrying out those businesses together. He was later apprehended by the authorities.
She said, “He wasn’t badly affected because we never knew he even had a door behind his shop.
“There’s an inner door, I don’t know how he constructed that door, so when the explosion happened, he and his boys used that inner door to escape jumping the fence to the other compound.
“Although he was burnt but not as bad as his neighbours and children. He and his boys escaped through the back door but later police came with him to BMH. They couldn’t handcuff him because he had bruises all over his body. He’s still at BMH and his family members are not even there.
“A lot of persons are afraid to even identify with him because everyone is angry, they said they’ve been warning him against that evil act he does in the shop. He sells gas, refills gas and does his welding in the same shop, so the community is angry, every body is angry.”
