Bengaluru fire accident: Narrow lanes made rescue operations a Herculean task

The air was filled with smoke, and residents woke up startled. “I heard a blast in the morning and thought it was a transformer short circuit,” said Nirmal Raj, a shopkeeper who lives in the adjacent lane of the building that caught fire, killing five in Nagarathpete in the wee hours of Saturday.

The Krishna Complex was ablaze by 2.30 a.m. “Fire extinguishers and ambulances arrived within an hour of the incident, but the narrow lanes posed a problem,” said Basavaraj, a constable deployed at the site in the morning.

Police and fire service personnel carrying out rescue operations at Nagarathpete in Bengaluru on Saturday.
| Photo Credit:
ALLEN EGENUSE J.

The residents helped steer the water pipes in the congested area, evacuated the roadside carts, and made way for the extinguishers to contain the fire.

“The first body recovered was identified as Madan Kumar,” said a police officer at the site. Madan Kumar was trapped in the godown below. Suresh Kumar, residing on the second floor and working for a businessman, too lost his life.

The 45-year-old godown owner of the adjacent building, Pukhraj, who knew the deceased family, said, “I got a call at 3 a.m., and that’s when I rushed to the building.” He saw flames racing through the structure while a few people were escaping through the terrace.

Watching helplessly

Residents in the adjacent building were watching the fire from their terrace helplessly as the rescue teams struggled to contain the fire. “We knew that there was a family stuck inside and we could not reach to their help,” a man from the neighbourhood rued.

The search to retrieve the bodies started at 3.30 a.m, and the first two people taken out were Madan Kumar and Suresh Kumar. The remaining bodies, including that of Sangeeta, Madan’s wife, and their two children, were identified by the personnel later.

A fire department official said they received the call around 3.14 a.m. “Eight vehicles were deployed along with 55 firefighters and 21 officers. As the fire broke out at the unit containing plastic and packing material, the fire spread rapidly, covering the entire building,” the official added.

The fire officials used the adjacent building to reach the top, and as the fire tenders could not reach close enough to the spot, the rescue team had to use additional hose pipes to pump the water to douse the fire. It was a Herculean task to bring the fire under control in the narrowly built structure, with the heat and smoke hindering the rescue operations for several hours, he added.

HM visits

Home Minister G. Parameshwara, who visited the spot, said there are thousands of residential buildings on the congested and narrow by-lanes, and many of them are converted into shop-cum-residential premises. He further said that the BBMP officials are verifying the trade license and possible building violations.

Home minister G. Parameshwara, visiting the site at Nagarathpete, Bengaluru on Saturday.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Meanwhile, the police are on the lookout for the building owners who are on the run. A case has been registered against them.