Kolkata: A fire broke out in the city's popular South City shopping mall Sunday morning, hours before it was to open for the crowd.
Nineteen fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames, noticed at around 9.15 am in the false ceiling of the food court on the third floor of the mall, a senior police officer said.
Nearly 100 visitors, including those watching movie in at a multiplex inside the mall, workers of various stores as well as security guards, were safely evacuated. There was no report of casualty, the officer added.
Power supply was cut off and fire fighters found it quite difficult to go inside the building as thick smoke engulfed the interior of the mall on posh Prince Anwar Shah Road. Traffic was stopped in front of the mall as curious onlookers gathered there. A team from the Kolkata Police's disaster management group also rushed to the spot.
A fibre glass wall in the food court was demolished to let the smoke out, a fire brigade officer said.
According to preliminary investigations, an electric short circuit caused the fire, which was doused at around 11 am. The fire brigade officials pointed out that the situation did not aggravate as there was sufficient supply of water from the reservoirs at the mall and adequate space which helped the firefighters to reach the origin of the blaze quickly.
Kolkata Mayor and fire and emergency services minister Sovan Chatterjee rushed to the spot. Speaking to the reporters later, he said, “I spoke to the police commissioner. All the visitors were evacuated quickly.”
“Fire is absolutely under control as our fire officers fought bravely to douse the fire. They are still using water to douse fire in pockets. Looking by the nature of it, it seems the fire was caused due to short circuit,” he added.
Later, a team of experts from the state forensic science laboratory visited the mall and collected samples for examination.
