.Blue line rail infrastructure safe, says LAMATA 

A section of the newly-inaugurated Blue Rail Mass Transit project at Marina, Lagos State, was, yesterday, gutted by fire.
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The incident caused residents to take to their heels, causing a stampede.

No  injury was reported, while no life was lost, as the fire was quickly put out by firefighters from both the Federal and State fire stations before it could spread to other sections.

The Guardian gathered that many residents thought that the fire incident was  an explosion and scampered for safety. But it only affected only the section that housed a generator used in the facility.

Responding to the incident, Lagos State Government and Lagos Metropolitan Authority (LAMATA), in a statement, said  the  fire incident involved 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.

Media consultant to LAMATA, Kola Ojelabi, said the fire was ignited by a petrol-powered generator deployed to pump diesel into the barge from a tanker parked by pier 27.

According to him, a preliminary test carried out by the contractor, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), showed that the pier was not affected.

He said: “The fire has since been 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 investigate the fire outbreak.

“The Police are currently working to ascertain the ownership of the fuel tanker and the barge.

“We 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.”