Liberia: Fire Disaster Hits Harper, Leaving Several Homeless

 

 

Residents of Harper City, Maryland County, have once more experienced a fire disaster that has left several homeless.

The fire outbreak occurred on Norish Street in Harper City, near the Martha Tubman Sports Stadium. The building, which the fire affected was occupied mostly by officers of the Liberian National Police and the Liberian Immigration Services. The cause of the fire is not cleared, however, some residents have blamed a female occupant for leaving a gas cooker on for the whole day.

Harriet Collins, a victim who is a student of Tubman University in Maryland said,  “All of my belongings got burned to ashes.” "It is sad that my apartment got burned to ashes today. I couldn't remove anything from there. My important documents and my little savings all got burned as well. It is a friend who is housing me right now,” the Tubman University student added.

He said that there is a need for authorities of the county and the national government as well as philanthropic organizations to attend to them in helping overcome the fire incident.

The building was once used by the United Nations Mission In Liberia (UNMIL) and after their withdrawal in 2017, the building was used to house the Liberia Immigration Service and other state security personnel in the county due to the existence of limited barracks. Community dwellers were seen running to the rescue of the fire victims, using sand to put out the fire but to no avail.

Meanwhile, several residents have decried the inability of the Liberia Fire Service detachment in the county to respond to such incidents in a timely manner.  It can be recalled that early this year three houses got burned in Pleebo Commercial city, Maryland County with no quick response from the Fire Service detachment unit.

Surprisingly, in the recent fire outbreak, no one was reported dead or injured. The incident is the third fire outbreak in Harper within just three months. On April 12, of this year five-room apartments got gutted by fire due to an electrical fault and on May 9, of the same year four-bedroom apartments belonging to the Maryland county Development superintendent in Pleebo got gutted by fire all due to an electrical shock.