Three trucks carrying goods gutted by fire at Kasumbalesa

Three trucks carrying goods destined for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been gutted by fire.

The trucks are believed to have caught fire around 20:00 hours of Monday, according to Chililabombwe District Commissioner, Previous Njekwa, in a statement issued in Lusaka on Tuesday.

Njekwa said the three trucks which included one from Zambia and the other two of foreign origin caught fire around 20:00 hours at a truck park in the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) facility.

“Two of the trucks were carrying sulphur while the other one had 36 drums of extraction regents both materials were being transported to the mines,” she explained.

A combined team of fire fighters from the DRC, Chililabombwe Municipal Council (CMC), Chingola Municipal Council (CMC), Lubambe Copper Mines (LCM) and Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) team were dispatched to the scene of the incident to quench the fire.

The team managed to put off the fire around 24:00 hours.

She attributed the delay to lack of a stationed fire engine and fire officers at the border to help respond to such emergencies.

Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) national coordinator, Gabriel Pollen, who earlier in the day visited the scene said DMMU would engage stakeholders to chart the way forward.

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