Fire at basement of 8-storeyed building at Girish Park

Kolkata: A massive fire broke out at the basement of an eight-storied building near Vivekananda Road and Bidhan Sarani crossing at Girish Park on Friday afternoon.

Twenty fire tenders were pressed into action and the inferno was brought under control around 6 pm.

According to sources, on Friday around 3:10 pm, local residents and pedestrians saw smoke coming out of an eight-storied building located at 83/1 Vivekanada Road. Primarily people thought that the fire broke out inside the branch of a nationalised bank, which is located on the ground floor of the building.

However, a few minutes later it was understood that the fire broke out on the basement of the building. The occupants of the building were informed and the building was evacuated. The Girish Park police station and fire brigade were informed. Around 3:20 pm, 10 fire tenders reached the spot and started spraying water on the basement. As the fire had started spreading 10 more fire tenders were sent to the spot to douse the fire as fast as possible to avoid damage and any casualty. Sources informed that though there are four entry and exit points of the basement, but fire-fighters faced difficulties to enter the basement as fire had already spread to the four entry and exit points.

Thick black smoke covered the area and many people had trouble in breathing. Fire fighters decided to spray water on the four entry and exit points so that the fire can be prevented from spreading. Around half-an-hour later fire fighters managed to enter the basement and started spraying water.

Around 5:30 pm, the fire was controlled and fire fighters along with Disaster Management Group (DMG) personnel and police searched the basement to find out if anyone was trapped. After a few minutes, all the agencies confirmed that no one was trapped in the basement. The cooling process went on for almost an hour.

The police came to know that a courier company use the basement as their warehouse.

It is feared that the damage will cost huge amount of money which may affect the courier company's customers as well. However, fire brigade officials may visit the place again to ascertain the cause of the incident.

They will check whether the company was following the necessary norms and had obtained all the licenses from the government agencies and had fire fighting system installed.