A fire at the main market in Mali’s capital Bamako has destroyed around 2,000 shops, resulting in millions of dollars in damage as fire crews struggled to access the site and hydrants failed to work, reports Reuters.

On the bright side, no one was killed or injured in the fire at the market, known as the Marche Rose.

“Once on the scene, we faced difficulties including access. There are no access roads into the market. Then the market’s fire hydrants were not connected to a water supply,” fire brigade commander Adama B. Diarra told Reuters.

Being interviewed on state-owned radio, Mali’s Prime Minister Oumar Tatam Ly said a failure to respect the country’s fire safety code had hindered efforts to control the fire.

“Armored vehicles from the gendarmes had to be called in to free up access and allow the firemen to do their job. The market was totally blocked,” he said.

While an official cause of the blaze has not been revealed, local merchants told Reuters they thought an electrical short-circuit may have been to blame.

“It doesn’t surprise us … There are electric wires everywhere,” Sadian Mariko, a senior member of the market’s merchants’ syndicate said.

“Nearly all the shops have burned. I don’t have an exact figure, but there are more than 2,000 shops. The losses are in the billions (of CFA francs),” he said.