By A Correspondent- Shop owners and vendors operating from the Harare building which was this morning razed down by fire have expressed shock at the development saying they are at a loss of words following the destruction of their wares.

Some of the women who spoke to ZimEye said they have no information regarding what transpired neither do they know the way forward following the tragedy.

Said one woman who did not identify herself:

“I just woke up in the morning receiving the sad news that the building had caught fire and all my things had been burnt. I was told that there was shop which started burning from behind the building and this saw the fire spreading to the whole building…..And when they were putting out the fire, they were protecting the service station which is near here.

No- one is really sure of what transpired, how the fire started or whether the building was insured, nothing has been communicated at all. Even the owners of the buildings are still mum on what happened or whether we will get our goods from the insurer. We know nothing at all…. All we heard was that when the fire brigade was called, there was no water and this is why they failed to contain the ravaging flame. This was our only source of livelihood, the business sustaining our families.”

Added another woman operating from the same building:

“I have lost everything… I have lost my goods worth over US$1k and in bond notes, i am not too sure how much it was. Fire brigade had no water. Maybe if they had water, we could have retained some of our stuff.”

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