A huge cleanup operation is taking place after a fire devastated one of the world’s biggest secondhand clothes markets.
Thousands of traders’ stalls were destroyed in the blaze that started at about 10pm on 1 January and consumed large sections of Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana’s capital.
The Ghana national fire service (GNFS) deployed 13 tenders to combat the flames. Goods worth millions of Ghanaian cedi have been destroyed, the GNFS said.
“This is devastating,” said Alex King Nartey, a GNFS spokesperson. “We’ve not recorded severe casualties, but the economic loss is enormous.
“Preliminary investigations suggest faulty electrical connections might have sparked the blaze, although we are not ruling out arson,” Nartey told AFP.
As much as two-thirds of the market has been destroyed and there are estimates that 8,000 people have been affected, though this number is expected to rise.
Alhassan Fatawu owned a stall where he used bits of material from secondhand clothes to make and sell his own designs, and was notified in the early hours of Thursday morning that the market was on fire.
“The man who runs the neighbouring stall called me and said everything had burned. I started panicking,” he said. He went to see the damage for himself at about 9am.
“I found burnt stalls. There were still parts burning,” he said. “I couldn’t salvage a thing [from my stall]. Everything has gone. Now my daily bread has been cut. I used my stall at Kantamanto to sustain myself.”
Before the fire, Kantamanto was a sprawling complex of thousands of stalls crammed with clothes from brands including H&M, Levi Strauss, Tesco, Primark, New Look and more. About 30,000 people depend on the market for their livelihood.
According to the Or Foundation, which campaigns against textile waste in Ghana, 15m secondhand garments from countries in the global north such as the UK, the US and China arrive at the market every week. The Kantamanto community is responsible for recirculating 25m pieces of secondhand clothing every month through resale, reuse, repair and remanufacturing.
The market is a vibrant hub of creativity and a necessary alternative to fast fashion. The fire has left many families in distress after catastrophic losses for retailers, upcyclers and other market members, as merchandise, shops, tools and equipment have been destroyed.
Yayra Agbofah, co-founder of the Revival, a community-led organisation creating awareness, art and jobs with textile waste arriving in Ghana, lost storage space in the blaze. He was at the market on Friday morning along with hundreds of others, clearing the debris. All that remained of many stalls were blackened and charred piles of clothes and ash.
“The goal is to rebuild in a week,” he said. “People have to return to work because they don’t have anything.”
He added: “There has been no information about what the government is going to do. We have to take things into our own hands and rebuild our market.
“The traders have lost everything. A lot are in debt. This is their livelihood. There are no other alternatives. We have to find ways to get our feet back and start work. The only option is to build back and start from scratch. It’s a devastating situation.”
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