Fire guts fish plant in Jinja

A fire broke out at the Jinja-based Karmic Foods Ltd, a fish processing plant and destroyed property worth millions of shillings.

By press time, the cause of the Monday morning fire was still unknown.

According to Yakub Majara, a compressor operator in the Engineering department of the plant, the fire started at 3:30am.

Majara, a resident of Walukuba in Jinja said he reported for work at 8:00pm on Sunday night and by the time of the fire incident, he was from checking an ice making machine outside the factory.

"I finished checking the ice making machine and walked back inside the machine room to have a rest. No sooner had I sat down to have a rest, smoke was all over the department. This prompted me to rush outside and immediately notified other workers," Majara said.

He added that by the time the fire started, they were four employees on duty in the engineering department.

Majara said the fire started from the ceiling of the machine room and security personnel and some Indian workers were already at the plant.

Wycliff Sseruyange, another employee said he called his boss at about 4:00am and notified him about the fire.

The Kiira regional Fire Officer, Rogers Turinawe, accompanied by the Jinja district Police Commander, Jamada Wandera said they had not yet established the cause of the fire but investigations had started.