Kolkata: Close on the heels of the collapse of Majherhat Bridge in Taratola another disaster struck the city early on Sunday when a devastating fire destroyed multi-storeyed Bagree Market in Burrabazar of central Kolkata leaving six persons injured including two fire brigade personnel.
Although 18 hours have passed, the blaze, which broke out at around 2.30 am at the six-storeyed market building housing nearly 1000 business establishments of various sizes on Canning Street, is still out of control despite the deployment of 30 fire engines.
Storage of highly combustible items have aggravated the situation only, according to the fire briga-de officials much contrary to a section of traders’ allegation of subotage. Director General (fire and emergency services) Jag Mohan said, “Chemicals and plastic materials have been stocked at the building making it tough to control the fire.”
He added, “It is a big fire. So it will take at least 24-48 hours to control the situation.” The blaze has revi-ved the horror of the four-day long inferno at Nanda-ram Market in the same commercial zone in Janu-ary of 2008.
The six injured were Abdullah Saib (30) of Canning Street, Rezwan Elahi (42) and his brother Resbon Elahi (42) of Mcl-eod Street, Sudip Kumar Mahato (21), Souvick Gho-sh (38) of Manicktala Fire Station and Pravash Malli-ck (32) of Lalbazar Fire Station.
The Kolkata Police said that the six persons fell sick due to smoke before bei-ng treated and discharged from Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.
In the afternoon defeaning sounds of some explosions, suspected to be of LPG cylinder burst, at the market building shook the area. In the evening a hyd-raulic ladder was pressed into service. But the dingy lanes and bylanes has posed a challenge to the fire brigade personnel to use the ladder in tackling the flames.
What has posed a major concern is the cracks whi-ch have surfaced in some parts of the building, whi-ch is located close to the Writers’ Building and Re-serve Bank of India office in Dalhousie area, due to tremendous heat. The am-ount of loss of goods is estimated to have been in crores.
Before leaving for Germany and Italy to attract investments chief minister Mamata Banerjee said at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, “There was no casualty. An accident took place. Fire can break out.”
She added, “I have received the report of the Kolkata Police Commissioner. No one has been tra-pped there. So the fire will be doused shortly.”
Ms Banerjee informed that two committees, comprising a group of ministers and senior administrative officials, have been set up to deal with any emergency and natural calamity during her overseas tour. She elaborated that she and chief secretary Malay De would be available on the phone anytime. Trinamul Congress secretary general Par-tha Chatterjee alleged, “When I went to the airport to see off the chief minister, she looked very worried about the incident.”
The education minister added, “She asked us to take care of everything. It was a huge loss ahead of the Puja season. Fire often breaks out in Burrabazar area. Enough cautions are given by the government. Such a fire would not have taken place if the people had taken adequate precautions. We will look into it. The government is sympathetic.”
