Midnight Fire Consumes Two-Month-old Baby, Parents in Osun

The burnt house

A midnight inferno that razed a residence in Kajola community, Osun State, in the early hours of Wednesday has left a two-month old baby and her parents dead.

The couple, their baby and all the household gadgets of the family were burnt were consumed by the fire without anyone noticing in the neighbourhood.

One of the children of the deceased, who went for a vigil, wept uncontrollably when she returned home in

the morning to meet the charred bodies of her parents and sibling. Officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps took the corpses of the victims to the mortuary.

The state Deputy Governor, Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori, who expressed shock when she visited the scene, gave an undisclosed amount of money to the family and said,

 “The government will henceforth be responsible for the upkeep of the surviving children.”

The Public Relations Officer, Ile-Ife PHCN Business District, Mr Akin Otaraki, said the fire outbreak could not have been caused by a power surge as was suspected because the area had been disconnected from power supply by Power Holding Company of Nigeria since Saturday, July 20, 2013 due to a yet-to-be identified fault.

It could not be ascertained whether the tragedy occurred before a light rain on Wednesday or after.