Shop owners and township residents suspect that the fire that engulfed Thanbyuzayat Town’s market at midnight last Saturday may not have been an accident, according to local sources.
“When the fire started, [local] people came to put out the flames. But the security guards at the market entrance would not let them in. The guards were busying themselves with trying to extinguish the fire, but they could not. Firefighters arrived at the scene one hour after the market caught fire. We cannot get anything [out of the remains]. Everything was burned to ash,” said a stall owner.
Residents estimated that the drive from the Thanbyuzayat Fire Department to the market should take emergency vehicles about three minutes.
The blaze was extinguished around 2am after approximately 12 fire and water trucks from Thanbyuzayat and neighboring towns congregated to battle the flames. Observers said the fire department primarily focused on dousing nearby houses with water to prevent the fire from spreading.
The popular market was a large complex of 600 shops and stalls selling electronics, jewelry, textiles, and general goods, according to Thanbyuzayat municipal records.
“We heard a rumor about a fire [being started in town], so some of us storeowners did not keep jewelry at our shops [that night], although [we also removed the jewelry] because the next day the market was closed for the weekend,” said one gold vendor who asked to remain anonymous.
The weekend fire sparked memories of a similar blaze that destroyed the “Lower Bazaar” market in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, in early December 2008. At that time, comprehensive investigations were not conducted to uncover how and why the market burned down, and locals speculated that authorities were complicit in deliberately igniting the buildings to make way for a new market that was subsequently built on the site.
Thanbyuzayat residents asserted that plans to rebuild or relocate their almost 30-year-old market have been developing for the past three years.
IMNA also received a video depicting how Township Electricity Department officials refuted a statement submitted by township authorities to the central government saying that faulty wiring caused the market fire.
