Property worth millions of naira has been destroyed by fire at a palm kernel factory in Industrial Park, Akure, Ondo State.

That the fire, which broke out on Sunday, was caused by an electric power surge in the factory as all the raw materials and processing machines in the factory were destroyed.

According to an eyewitness, the fire had wreaked havoc on the factory before the arrival of men of the Federal Fire Service.The owner of the factory, Mr Adesunloye Adeniyi, who said he had been in palm kernel processing business for over 10 years, explained that equipment worth N10m was lost to the inferno.

He stated that a heavy-duty generator and raw materials used for processing palm kernel were also destroyed.

Adeniyi said, “We just heard the spark from the (electricity) exchange box and the next thing everywhere was on fire. I only had five workers on ground and we were not able to salvage anything because everything was highly inflammable and it was spreading very fast.

“The goods I lost are more than N10m as I have two machines and each is worth over N2m. We had 500,000 tonnes of raw materials on ground. Each tonne costs N350,000, not to talk of the structure on ground.

“This is what I have been putting together for over 10 years now; it has gone down the drain.”