A early morning blaze tore through and destroyed several market stalls in Central last night, as a bleary-eyed Coconuts reporter watched on from a nearby rooftop.
Starting just before 1am, the fire spread through Graham St, between Gage and Wellington streets, a narrow, mostly covered pedestrian zone lined during the day with small vendors selling largely fruit and vegetables.
“I think someone owed someone else money,” one tenant of the building offered up in a game of baseless speculation as to the fire’s origins.
“When we lived in Yau Mei Tai, we saw a building on fire. It was bigger than this,” another tenant added, as everyone hoped the adjacent under-construction skyscraper wouldn’t also go up in flames.
Fortunately, it didn’t.
From the hill above and the slope below, firefighters took less than 20 minutes to bring the flames under control.
Strewn debris of the ramshackle stalls was visible in the morning, with several appearing gutted.
Vendors whose stalls were spared tried to go back to business as usual, shrugging when asked if they’d heard of the fire’s cause.
A police spokesperson said six stalls were burned and there was no indication of any suspicious circumstances.
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