Fire Guts Radio Station

- ?300m property destroyed
Tamale (Northen Region) -- THE NUMEROUS listeners and fans of 'Diamond FM' in Tamale were thrown into mourning after hearing that fire had gutted the studios and premises of the station in the early hours of Sunday morning.

"I woke up at 4.00am and switched on to 'Diamond FM' to listen to BBC news. But a couple of minutes later, the transmission went off.

I assumed that they had had light off." This was the typical reaction of listeners who were literally dumbfounded and overwhelmed by the news of the blazing inferno that engulfed the station's studios and reduced its equipment to mangled metal and soot.

Indeed they were not far from the truth as recounted by the technician on duty, Mr. Kojo Whyte: "I reported at work at 3.45 am and started transmission at 3.55am. I linked up to the BBC at 4.am. At 4.05 am the lights in the whole building went off, but about two minutes later it came on again."

Kojo continued: "I decided to wait for five minutes before putting on the machine. Then I heard an explosion and went onto the veranda to find out, but saw nothing. I went back to the transmission room. But then it occurred to me to check the studio."

Immediately Kojo opened the door to the studio, he said, tongues of flames nearly engulfed him! "I quickly retreated and banged the door. His subsequent move was to call the fire service.

"I told the fireman who answered the call that there was fire at 'Diamond FM.' He kept on asking me questions that I could not understand. So I rushed to the soldiers on duty at the Barclays Bank for help.

By the time the fire service arrived, it was too late. The fire had ravaged the two studios, sneaked into the transmission room and spilled onto the veranda. Indeed nothing was salvaged from the rooms. All the equipment, furniture, air conditioners, Console, speakers, computers, compact disc players and other items were burnt beyond recognition. However, the transmitter, which had been scorched by the heat, looked intact.

A director of the station, Mr. Issaka Goodman, said equipment and items destroyed in the fire amount to well over ?300 million.

According to Goodman, the fire service personnel said the cause of the fire might be an electrical fault.

The 'Diamond FM' technician and other staff believe that it was the result of a power surge emanating from the brief power outage by the VRA.

But the VRA authorities that came to the scene disagreed with this assertion and claimed that if it were so it would have reflected in their logbook.

They went ahead to propound some theories that sought to limit the fault to the premises of 'Diamond FM,' which were not convincing to the staff of the radio station.

Goodman recounted further how in July, last year, when the station was test transmitting, two of its amplifiers and one Exiter got burnt as a result of sporadic power outage.

According to Goodman, it is no secret that the transformer serving the area, one of the busiest commercial zones in Tamale, is overloaded. "In view of this it is imperative that VRA upgrades the transformer."

However, Goodman assured the station's numerous listeners that it will bounce back in a week's time.

The reason was not farfetched. 'Diamond FM' started dishing out relatively more professional productions and interesting programmes. It was not surprising, therefore, when listeners, male and female, young and old, started trooping to the station to sympathise with them.

As they came and went, one could hear comments such as "May Allah give them the wherewithal and resilience to come back to inform and educate us."