Popular bakery in capital goes up in flames

SHOPPERS may face a bread shortage after a bakery producing 24,000 loaves a day was put out of action by a fire on Sunday morning.

The blaze in the Göçmenköy Bakery on Lefkoşa’s industrial estate was believed to have been caused by an explosion in equipment used to suppy fuel to three giant bread ovens, which were all destroyed when the building was reduced to a gutted ruin.

“We are going to be closed for at least 10 days,” said director of the company, Olgun Şah.

“The total cost of damage caused by the fire amounts to around 600,000TL, including 60,000TL for each of the ovens. That, though, is not our only loss, as we usually produce about 24,000 loaves a day.”

Firefighters managed to douse the flames before they could spread to nearby premises. In a trio of call-outs for firefighters on the same morning, a tailor’s and a laundry were also destroyed in fires on Sunday.

An electrical fault was blamed for sparking the blaze which broke out in Mevlevi Tekke Sokak, in Lefkoşa’s walled city. The owner of the business in a Vakıflarowned building, Adnan Uygun, said 10 washing machines, a refrigerator and a microwave oven had been lost.

The morning’s third major incident was a suspected case of arson involving a van filled with clothes that were ready to go to a shop the following day. The vehicle, belonging to Yusuf Desmir, was parked in Osman Buba Sokak, Gönyeli, when it burst into flames. A car parked next to the van was also damaged.