by Oge Okonkwo

The office of  Daar Communications Plc, owners of Africa Independent Television and Raypower FM station in Bayelsa was destroyed by fire on Thursday.

According to reports, the fire which started at about 2 a.m razed the Ray Power section of Daar Communications to the ground.

It was gathered that the fire was caused by a power surge and was noticed by policemen in a station near the office.

The Punch reports:

A resident, who did not want his name mentioned, said if not for the efforts of the policemen, who alerted the firefighters to the incident, the entire building would have been consumed.

The source said, “The fire started between 1am and 2am. You know police station is near the AIT office. When some policemen saw smoke coming out of the building, they raised the alarm, others made calls to the firefighters.

“They called the Bayelsa State Fire Service and some workers of the media house. The firefighters did not waste time in responding to the distress call. It took them some hours before they could put out the fire.

“Their intervention saved the entire building from being consumed. But the equipment in the RayPower studio and other rooms could not be salvaged.”

Relating the incident to our correspondent, General Manager, RayPower, Bayelsa, Mr. Winston Akpabio, said the station had lost millions of naira worth of equipment, stressing that all equipment in the radio studio were destroyed.

The general manager said, “We had closed transmission at 10.10pm and all the radio operators had closed.

“About 1am, we got a call that power suddenly came back. The voltage was said to be too high. The voltage triggered a surge. How that was possible is still a mystery because all the gadgets, equipment and outlets had been switched off.

“Before the workers closed for the day, the engineer had switched off all the gadgets because we used generator to work as there was no electricity.”

Mr. Ikpebagha Amos, the station’s disc jockey, said as the last person to  close, he switched off all the equipment and gadgets in the studio.

When our correspondent visited the office, employees were seen discussing the incident.