Click to play videoKolkata: In Kolkata a fire that sparked off 18 hours ago is still not under control. Goods worth crores of rupees were gutted and seven houses destroyed completely at the burrabazaar area.
“Today when I came all was finished. Goods worth Rs three lakh are destroyed. Now I will have to take a loan to rebuild it,” says Sahibuddin.
Sahibuddin is one of the more than 3000 businessmen who lost everything in this inferno, which raged for hours in Kolkata after it began at around 1.45 AM on Saturday. From the tarpaulin market, the fire spread to seven more buildings, including the 10 storied Nandram market.
Though no one was killed, this was one of the biggest fires in Burrabazar in the last 5 years.
In 2002, a fire in a residential-cum business complex injured 25 persons, In April 2003, a blaze in Satyanarayan Park destroyed goods worth lakhs while another gutted the Saraf market in May last year. On August 28th, 35,000 direct lines went dead after a fire in the Burrabazar telephone exchange.
People charge the fire department with incompetence, but officials say the narrow lanes and small shops hamper their work.
“I received a similar complain. But the narrow passage way is making the job difficult,” says Goutam Mohan Chakrabarti, Police commissioner, Kolkata.
Once again the failure of the fire brigade has come to the forefront. They only have one hydraulic ladder to douse the fire. However, this has shown that a lot more needs to be put in place to combat such kind of incidents.
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