An enormous cleanup operation is going down after a fireplace devastated one of many world’s largest secondhand garments markets.
1000’s of merchants’ stalls had been destroyed within the blaze that began at about 10pm on 1 January and consumed massive sections of Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana’s capital.
The Ghana nationwide fireplace service (GNFS) deployed 13 tenders to fight the flames. Items price tens of millions of Ghanaian cedi have been destroyed, the GNFS mentioned.
“That is devastating,” mentioned Alex King Nartey, a GNFS spokesperson. “We’ve not recorded extreme casualties, however the financial loss is gigantic.
“Preliminary investigations counsel defective electrical connections may need sparked the blaze, though we aren’t ruling out arson,” Nartey informed AFP.
As a lot as two-thirds of the market has been destroyed and there are estimates that 8,000 individuals have been affected, although this quantity is anticipated to rise.
Alhassan Fatawu owned a stall the place he used bits of fabric from secondhand garments to make and promote his personal designs, and was notified within the early hours of Thursday morning that the market was on fireplace.
“The person who runs the neighbouring stall referred to as me and mentioned the whole lot had burned. I began panicking,” he mentioned. He went to see the injury for himself at about 9am.
“I discovered burnt stalls. There have been nonetheless components burning,” he mentioned. “I couldn’t salvage a factor [from my stall]. All the pieces has gone. Now my every day bread has been minimize. I used my stall at Kantamanto to maintain myself.”
Earlier than the hearth, Kantamanto was a sprawling complicated of 1000’s of stalls full of garments from manufacturers together with H&M, Levi Strauss, Tesco, Primark, New Look and extra. About 30,000 individuals rely in the marketplace for his or her livelihood.
In line with the Or Basis, which campaigns towards textile waste in Ghana, 15m secondhand clothes from nations within the world north such because the UK, the US and China arrive on the market each week. The Kantamanto group is chargeable for recirculating 25m items of secondhand clothes each month by resale, reuse, restore and remanufacturing.
The market is a vibrant hub of creativity and a essential different to quick style. The fireplace has left many households in misery after catastrophic losses for retailers, upcyclers and different market members, as merchandise, retailers, instruments and gear have been destroyed.
Yayra Agbofah, founding father of the Revival, a community-led organisation creating consciousness, artwork and jobs with textile waste arriving in Ghana, misplaced space for storing within the blaze. He was on the market on Friday morning together with a whole bunch of others, clearing the particles. All that remained of many stalls had been blackened and charred piles of garments and ash.
“The purpose is to rebuild in per week,” he mentioned. “Folks should return to work as a result of they don’t have something.”
He added: “There was no details about what the federal government goes to do. We’ve got to take issues into our personal palms and rebuild our market.
“The merchants have misplaced the whole lot. So much are in debt. That is their livelihood. There are not any different options. We’ve got to seek out methods to get our toes again and begin work. The one possibility is to construct again and begin from scratch. It’s a devastating scenario.”
