20190604 Fire in Patna building: Four girls, elderly person rescued
India Jun 04 2019 “Building” “Complex bldg.” “Stores” “Warehouses”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Fire in Patna building: Four girls, elderly person rescued
Updated: 2019–06–05
PATNA: A Surat-like tragedy was averted when four girls and a senior citizen were rescued after a fire broke out on the second floor of Balaji Niwas under the Kadamkuan police station area in Patna on Tuesday morning. The girls were trapped in their fourth floor flat.
The girls were rescued by placing an iron ladder in the balcony of a fourth floor flat in an adjacent building. Both the buildings are located on the Paras campus beside PN Anglo Sanskrit School. Three of the rescued girls were identified as Pallavi Bharti from Nalanda, Vandana Kumari from Samastipur and Pooja Kumari. They lived in the fourth floor flat on rent and were preparing for competitive examinations. Parmanand Singh (61) was rescued from the third floor by fire fighters after they reached the spot. Singh was paralysed and left behind by his family members in the flat.
“Thick smoke was billowing from the second floor and had engulfed the staircase. We cried for help from our balcony. When local people placed the ladder from the adjacent building, we somehow crawled over it to the other side while trembling in fear,” Vandana told TOI over phone.
The second floor of the G+4 residential building was being used for storage of chemicals, plastic and paper items meant for laboratories in schools and pathological tests.
Fire officer: Building illegally used for storing chemicals
The building is owned by one Manoj Kumar, who lives with his family on the first floor. They have been on vacation since last week. The ground floor has two shops while the third floor was rented to Singh’s family. The fourth and top floor of the building was being used as a hostel in which the four girls resided.
Soni Kumari, an eyewitness, told TOI that an iron ladder was placed between the fourth floor balconies of the two buildings to rescue the girls, who were screaming for help.
Six fire tenders were rushed to the spot for dousing flames and rescue work. Lodipur fire station officer Ramashankar Thakur said, “We came to know that chemicals were stored inside the building due to which water jets were not effective. Immediately, we poured chemicals in the fire tenders for discharging foam only after which the fire was brought under control.”
He said Singh was found choking when fire fighters entered inside the building. He was brought down and rushed to a hospital, Thakur said and added, “The residential building was illegally used for storage of chemicals and other items, jeopardizing lives of occupants. Technically, an FIR must be lodged against building owner, but every second residential building in the area has the same condition and we are overburdened.”
Web Source: The times of india