Car catches fire, completely burnt

A Burundian plying wholesale business in Limbe central business market, Blantyre, had a shock of his lifetime when he painfully witnessed his reconditioned Toyota Carina, Estate, burn almost to ashes.

According to eyewitnesses, the incident happened at Limbe Market, hardware and car parts section at around 11 on Thursday morning. It is not clear what exactly caused the fire, but a Limbe police traffic officer suspected the cause must have been electrical in nature.

Fadwick Chimbalanga, owner of the welding shop, which was the actual scene of the incident, said the owner, Samson Filisiyeni, had brought the vehicle to the shop for repairs and that it the course of the same, “we just saw fire underneath the car.”

Chimbalanga said the car’s silencer had broken on several places and that they had to arch-weld it. The work had just started on the silencer when he sensed the car may have caught fire, he explained.

The vehicle, registration number BP 3747 was then pulled away “from the pit” to prevent other cars which were close by also catching fire.

‘All efforts to save it did not help; the fire was too strong that very difficult to come close to it.

“Blantyre City Assembly firefighters came in too late when the fire had completely gutted the vehicle,” he said.

He added, however, that  the delay by the firefighters was not their fault but that people around scene of the incident did not have fire emergency telephone numbers and when they accessed them, it was already too late.