Fire at SOICO caused almost a million dollars in damage – Watch

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Fire at SOICO caused almost a million dollars in damage – Watch

6:13 CAT | 02 Dec 2018

Daniel David. Photo: O País

A fire that swept through the technical department of the Mozambican independent media group SOICO on Friday caused damage valued at 950,000 US dollars, according to an estimate given by the chairperson of the SOICO Board of Directors, Daniel David.

SOICO owns the independent television station STV, the radio station SFM and the daily paper “O Pais”.

After the initial clean-up operation, David told reporters “We are talking about a technical department that cost us about 1.2 million dollars. Some of the equipment can be recovered, but most of it is damaged. Although it has yet to be confirmed, we can assume that, in terms of equipment, the group has lost between 900,000 and 950,000 dollars.”

Added to the loss of equipment, is the loss of some of the SOICO audio-visual archives. “The greatest loss isn’t the equipment – it’s the content that it held”, said David. “We are trying to see how we can recover some of the content, but it’s very difficult in these initial days. We shall continue to work in the coming weeks, to see whether or not it is possible, and what can be done so that we don’t lose the material that existed on the platform installed in the technical department”.

The fire broke out at about 13.40 on Friday, and all SOICO broadcasts were interrupted for between four and five hours. But the SOICO staff rigged up alternatives, depending on the mobile studio normally used for outside broadcasts, and by the Friday evening news STV appeared to be broadcasting normally.

But David admitted “we are working under very precarious conditions, which do not guarantee the reliability and sustainability of our transmission. Over the next two or three days we need to ensure stabilisation of an alternative platform which can guarantee the broadcasts”.

“This will imply the purchase of new equipment, a visit by the foreign technicians who helped us install the technical department, and repairs to the building itself, which has been damaged”, he added.

The cause of the fire is not yet known. Teams from the fire brigade, the Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC), and the insurance company were at the scene on Friday afternoon, working to determine what had caused the blaze.

Incêndio Deflagrou O Edifício-Sede Da STV Em Maputo Danificando Parte Do Equipamento Operacional Da Estação https://t.co/jNZJwePUD0

— Portal Moz News (@MozNews1) December 1, 2018

COO do Grupo SOICO, Jeremias Langa, fala do incêndio na central técnica#stv #gruposoico pic.twitter.com/m5a3kN1Ibt

— STV (@soicotelevisao) November 30, 2018