Some students of Dadiesoaba Nursing and Midwifery Training College have blamed the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) for the complete destruction of their belongings in the fire that razed down a dormitory in the school.
The students accused that the personnel of the Service failed to show up at the scene of the incident after more than an hour of placing a distress call to them.
The accusation and angst follow reports of destruction of a girls’ dormitory along with belongings of the students in an inferno which swept through the Training College.
Reports indicate the fire started around 3:00pm on Sunday, September 4.
The inferno which swept through the entire girls’ dormitory burnt the structure down.
Students hooted at some fire officers while making statements that they came after allowing the fire to wreak havoc.
Over 150 students have been reportedly been affected by the incident.
A video circulating on social media and sighted by angelonline.com.gh showed students weeping as they helplessly watched their belongings burn to ashes.
Speaking in an interview on Angel TV’s midday news, a student of the College, Bismark Oppong Dente blamed the Fire Service for failing in their mandate.
“We called the fire service and they kept telling us they are coming…for about an hour and a half that we called them, they had not responded to our distress call yet. When they came too, they didn’t come with the fire tender…as to whether they were there to see if our call was true or whatever it is they came to do, we don’t know…and that’s why the students were hooting at them and sacking them to leave.
Though the cause of the fire is yet to be revealed, Bismark Oppong Dente, blamed the cause of the fire outbreak on what he termed as ‘dumsor’.
According to him “the lights kept going on and off just like our normal dumsor. So when it went off and came back then the fire started…”
When asked if the Service suspected a prank call, he responded that “we are students who deal with health matters [and therefore] we can never joke with a such a serious issue. What made us angry was the fact that they came without tools to quench the fire and that’s why we the students were not receptive of them. It was later that the Bechem Fire Service came to douse the remaining fires…”
Meanwhile the students have resorted to making make-shift sleeping places in their lecture halls.
