Inhabitants of Bamenda on Sunday, October 17, 2010 woke up to huge flames and fire from the Commercial Avenue. There was indeed a lot to cry about the fire destroying a building that hosted ANUCAM book depot, Allied Computers cyber Café, Volcano book shop, a building materials shop, Credit union and more in the neighborhood of the City centre. Eye witness say they got a loud sound around 1a.m Sunday and by the time they rushed towards the sound the fire had already consumed several buildings. After serious attempts to put out the flames eye witnesses say the Fire Brigade or Army Rescue Unit arrived much later because they were involved in yet another fire disaster in far away Bambui, Tubah Sub division.
One of the victims who doubles as the General Manager of ANUCAM, Wanatu Egbert, the fire consumed everything in their depot. He explained that they had stocked books worth over Cfa 550 million. He was at a loss about the way forward after such a disaster.
Overall estimates on what was lost to the fire is yet to be known but the Cyber Café had about 50 computers burnt while the building materials shop and others were well stocked. When C.T got to the scene early Monday morning smoke could still be seen coming out from the debris and some eye witnesses suspected the fire might have been caused by a short circuit. On the ground one could find wet books burnt left and right and some inhabitants were around to comfort and encourage the victims.
