Trading activities are expected to resume at the famous Kejetia Market in Kumasi on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, after it was temporarily shut down days earlier.
This was after the market was ravaged by a fire on Wednesday, March 15, where goods and properties feared to be in the millions of Ghana cedis, were destroyed.
This is the second time a major fire has swept through the Kejetia Market, also known as the Kumasi Central Market, after a Tuesday, May 11, 2021, fire that affected portions of market.
Personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service were able to douse the inferno and prevented it from spreading to other properties.
In this recent fire, which is believed to have started at Kejetia Dubai, where car tyres are sold, reports say that fire started around 4:30 pm.
GhanaWeb's reporter on the ground captured how a mother and baby collapsed due to the heavy smoke at the scene, whereas in another video, a woman also jumped out of the building to save her life.
But the Kejetia Market, the largest single market in West Africa, beyond being one of the biggest markets in the country, is also a destination for one of the most beautiful architectural edifices Ghana boasts of.
In May 2019, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, cut the sod for the phase two redevelopment of the market, estimated to cost 248 million euros, and “is being financed by Deutsche Bank of Germany, with export credit guarantee from the United Kingdom Export Finance (UKEF).”
The market is estimated to cover a total area of 172,197 square meters.
The video below shows how the market looked like before the fire, plus some photos of the interior of the market.
