Sudan: 500 cotton bales burn in El Gezira gin fire

A consignment of cotton bales ready for export was destroyed on Friday morning, when fire broke out in the Chinese cotton gin at Marinjan in El Gezira.

The authorities attributed the fire, according to Sudan News Agency, to friction between the cotton and part of the machinery, which led to a spark that caused the huge fire that lasted 7 hours.

They pointed out that the total initial loss is 500 bales of ginned cotton prepared for export as well 250 quintals of cotton flowers with a total cost exceeding SDG 900,000 ($19,000*).

Earlier gin fire

In May, an initial fire in a transport lorry is believed to be the cause of a fire that broke out at El Huri gin west of El Galabat locality on in El Gedaref on Monday. Some 18,000 bales of cotton were destroyed in the blaze.

Farmer Mustafa Sayed told Radio Dabanga that the fire broke out after fire spread from a transport lorry bringing cotton to the gin. He said that the delay of the civil defence teams, the weakness of safety procedures, and the lack of sufficient fire extinguishers caused the fire to spread quickly

Sayed said losses to farmers are estimated at SDG 35 million (*$740,000).

* All SDG currency conversions are based on the daily US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS)