Gold stores at a main market in the Saudi port city of Jeddah are believed to have suffered heavy losses after a fire had swept through the site earlier this week. It is extremely difficult to tally the amounts of gold that were burnt inside stores at the market because of the blaze, according to a jewellery expert. “They were exposed to high temperatures that might have melted them,“ said expert Ahmed Al Amudi. “However, it is possible to rehabilitate the non-molten or damaged quantities by cleaning them,” he told local sources. Estimating heavy losses wreaked from the fire, he added that the market had nearly 100 gold stores, making the site a major destination in Jeddah for gold hunters. “The overlap of stores hampers the process of counting the quantities, especially the unique types of diamonds and the so-called antiques, which are expensive. Some of them may reach millions of riyals in value,” he explained. The expert also expected that some gold, kept inside safes at the time of the fire, probably survived damage or melting, but its amount may be small. “Moreover, a large number of gold stores do not have insurance due to difficult requirements,” Al Amudi […]