By IANS
Kolkata : A tall ladder from West Bengal’s industrial project Haldia Petrochemicals was brought in to fight Kolkata’s worst fire in living memory in the Burrabazar wholesale market as the flames leapt out of a high-rise building despite three days of unrelenting but ill-equipped efforts.
“We have brought a very tall and sophisticated ladder from the Haldia Petrochemicals (about 125 km from Kolkata) and the same is now used to douse the flames. We hope to get a fruitful result in some hours from now,” West Bengal Fire Service principal officer Gopal Bhattacharya told IANS Monday night.
“I am unable to speak much from here but we hope we would be able to control the blaze,” Bhattacharya, who was overseeing the fire fighting operation, said even as the blaze engulfed the top three floors of the 14-storied Nandaram market building.
A lone sky-lift ladder of the fire department was earlier trying to fight the blaze that proved too powerful to be tamed while a 30-member team of army firemen joined their civilian counterparts to combat the inferno that left the entire city shocked.
Locals feared the fire could spread towards another market area called Khamrapatti on one side of the blazing building.
West Bengal Fire Minister Pratim Chatterjee said the building was ‘unauthorised’ and since its plan was not available, fire fighting became even more difficult.
Earlier in the day, journalists of national and local television channels who were covering the blaze were attacked mercilessly by a mob.
The police said some people wearing blue badges and wielding rods and sticks attacked mediapersons, injuring some of them severely, smashing cameras and damaging outdoor broadcast (OB) vans of television channels.
The attackers could be a section of angry traders who were not too happy with the coverage, in the course of which the illegal manner of storing explosive items and running businesses were uncovered, the police said.
OB vans of 10 TV channels, including Times Now, Sahara, Star Ananda, NE Bangla and Kolkata TV, were damaged and their cameras broken.
At least 15 journalists, including camerapersons, were injured in the attack. Two of them were seriously injured and were hospitalised.
The reason for the attack was not yet known. The Rapid Action Force (RAF) was deployed in the area to support policemen.
Magsaysay award winning social activist and writer Mahasweta Devi Monday slammed the ruling Communists for failing to extinguish the blaze.
“While Burrabazar burnt they (the Communist Party of India-Marxist or CPI-M) were holding a rally at the Brigade Parade Ground. They are responsible for complete depletion of groundwater and vanishing water bodies,” the firebrand writer said here at a function.
The firemen during the day used carbon dioxide to fight the blaze after water and foam failed.
Several explosions were heard from the upper floors of the burning building as the entire Burrabazar area became prone to threat of fire.
D. Biswas, director of the West Bengal Fire Service, said earlier in the day: “We hope we will be able to control the fire by the end of the day.”
On Sunday, a deafening explosion, possibly in a generator room, cracked the building in the crammed trading hub, triggering fears of the structure’s collapse.
Around 7.30 p.m. Sunday, explosions were heard as flames leapt out and the fire spread further. Later, more cylinder blasts were heard. The building had already tilted and it was feared that the melting of steel bars due to the tremendous heat generated by the inferno could bring down the structure any moment.
A part of the building has already collapsed. Though fire officials said the rest of the building was not on the verge of collapse, nearby houses were evacuated.
Officials said property worth billions of rupees was destroyed despite the efforts of 42 fire tenders aided by the army, the air force and the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
A trader of Burrabazar, Tej Narayan Baidya, died Sunday of a heart attack having lost his belongings.
Kolkata fire brigade personnel lacked necessary equipment to reach top floors of high-rise buildings.
The narrow crammed lanes of Burrabazar added to the hibndrances in fire fighting.
Traders of Burrabazar said about 2,500 shops, dealing in plastics, polythene and other inflammable materials, were gutted and losses could cross Rs.2 billion.
B.D. Mimani, secretary of the local trade organisation, said “99 percent” of the traders had not insured their shops and would have to rebuild their lives from scratch.
While the buildings burned, the traders and residents wailed as they lost everything in the fire.
It was not clear how the fire began but an electrical short circuit or sabotage is suspected to be a possible cause.
Burrabazar is the wholesale market area of Kolkata with clusters of unplanned and unauthorised constructions.