A young woman has died, and a student sustained injuries after a fire gutted a four-room apartment on Nabor Street, off Ikpa Road, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, in the early hours of Monday.
Although the cause of the fire has yet to be officially determined, residents who witnessed the incident alleged that an electric scooter battery left charging overnight triggered it.
The landlady of the compound, Patricia Udoukpo, stated she woke at approximately 04:30 after noticing thick smoke rising from the roof of one of the apartments she had let to tenants.
“When I saw the smoke, I screamed, asking what they had cooked that they allowed to burn. That was when I heard Lawrence Nya, one of my tenants and a student, shouting, ‘Help me,” she told PREMIUM TIMES.
Ms Udoukpo raised the alarm by banging on objects around the compound to alert other residents and neighbours. She attempted to force open the iron burglary-proof door of Mr Nya’s room to rescue him, but she suffered an electric shock from the metal fixture.
