Mitchell Dzoro
The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) confirmed that the cause of the fire incident that occurred in September at their mechanical workshops in Bulawayo was due to a cigarette stub.
The incident that destroyed 40 coaches at the premises occurred in the afternoon hours and was deemed as arson attacks.
NRZ general manager, Respina Zinyanduko confirmed that internal investigations were carried out indicating that a cigarette stub caused the fire.
“The initial report that I got from loss control as well as the report I got from a commission of inquiry that we set, it constituted of different departments of NRZ and indicated that it could be a fire, as a result of some employees, because we do not allow some people to smoke at work, some employees could have taken shelter in those coaches trying to hide and smoke a bit.
“One of them might have left a stub that was still burning and there was wind which then resulted in the spread of fire,” confirmed Zinyanduko.
The decommissioned coaches which were waiting for their disposal as scrap valued at US$40 000 and NRZ has since lost it as a result of the fire that engulfs their premises.
Zinyanduko revealed that the seats were taken out of the coaches and fitted into working coaches.
“The value that was lost was minimal because we had taken the seats from these coaches and they were fitted to those which were operational, these were more like shells that were parked with the intention to refurbish them in the future or disposing of them.
“The value that was there was on the scrap value of the assets, I examined the coaches one by one myself and they are still in a condition in which we can dispose of them as scrap metal.Those coaches in our books were carrying a value of about US$1,000 each because they were just shells,” said Zinyambuko.