Kolkata buiding fire: Top floor explodes

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Agencies

Posted online: Sunday , January 13, 2008 at 09:15:38
Updated: Sunday , January 13, 2008 at 09:30:49

Kolkata, January 13: Explosions rocked the diesel-stacked generator room of the fire-ravaged building in Burrabazar, India's biggest wholesale market triggering fears that the 13-storeyed structure would collapse.

As the blaze raged in the building for the second day, the flames leapt upto the generator room on the 12th floor, setting off the blasts, police said.

It may be gas cylinder blasts or explosions caused by about 300 litres of diesel stocked in the generator room, they said.

Soon after the explosions began, people in the vicinity scurried to safer areas and fire-fighers engaged in dousing the flames retreated in panic.

The building, where fire had been on since Friday, has leaned a little to its left side and there is fear that a part of it may crumble, city Police Commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakraborty said.

Civil firefighters and army troops were still trying put out the blaze which has already destroyed more than 3,000 shops in the congested market.

Chakraborty said armymen clad in fire-resistance suits entered the eighth floor of the building to assist in fire fighting operations which were hampered due to water shortage.

The fire was raging for over 45 hours at Nandaram Market turning it into a towering inferno as water canons could not reach the tenth and upper floors where the flames continued and had spread to the rear portion of the building.

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