20200121 Surat: Another ticking time bomb explodes
India Jan 21 2020 “Building” “Stores”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Surat: Another ticking time bomb explodes
Updated: 2020–01–22
Surat, projected to be world&’s fastest growing city in the 2019-35, is fast earning an ignominious tag of Gujarat’s ‘inferno capital.’
Barely eight months after a major fire snuffed out 22 young lives in the city, another huge blaze gutted the newly constructed 12-storey Raghuvir Celeum Textile Market on Puna-Kumbhariya Road in Saroli on Tuesday. The flames were raging for over 12 hours and thick black smoke was seen from kms away.
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Barring Takshashila Arcade fire, which killed 22 young students, barely has any stringent action been taken in case of thousands of other fires. Notices and temporary sealing drives have miserably failed to rein in the businessman and builders who care little for precious lives. Surat is India’s textile hub and such frequent fires are only denting its image. Authorities like Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) need to deal with all those refusing to adhere to fire safety with an iron fist.
Though there were no casualties, this was easily one of the biggest fires in the Diamond City’s recent history with 60 fire fighters with 300 firemen trying to douse the blaze, albeit with little success.
By late evening, most dousing operation was completed, but smoke billowed
Though the exact cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained, it is suspected that some fault in the internal wiring could have sparked the flames at around 3am that spread rapidly due to huge quantity of textile material stored in nearly 800 shops in the market.
Two of the total three wings of the market were completely gutted.
More than 60 fire fighters and a staff of more than 300 fire fighters from all the 16 fire stations of the city were rushed to the spot to control the fire.
Three high-rise ladders equipped with water bowsers were used to control the fire and dozen fire tenders from industrial areas of Hazira, Palsana and Hojiwala along with Bardoli nagarpalika and Kamrej fire station were summoned for the fire fighting exercise. A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team was also rushed to the spot to help in the operation.
NV Upadhyay, deputy municipal commissioner, who heads the fire and emergency service of SMC, told TOI:, “We are yet to ascertain the exact cause of the fire, but it appears that there was some fault in the electric wiring. By evening, we were able to control around 60% of the blaze and decided to send the fire fighters inside the building to douse the fire in the shops.”
The market was constructed in 2018 and the area is under the jurisdiction of Surat Urban Development Authority (SUDA).
Municipal commissioner Banchhanidhi Pani, who is the chairman of SUDA, said, "SUDA has cancelled the building-use certificate (BUC) of the Textile market and the building will be sealed.”
“It was a massive fire and we used all our resources to control the blaze. By late evening, most dousing operation was completed, but smoke was still billowing,” he added.
Web Source: The times of India