A massive fire broke out on Friday night in one of the shops at Veera Vasantha Rayar Mandapam, located near Eastern Tower of the renowned Meenakshi Amman Temple. The fire soon spread to other shops and engulfed them completely. Apart from shops, a section of pillars and roof in Veera Vasantha Rayar Mandapam collapsed. 

Madurai Collector K Veera Raghav Rao, who inspected the damage, said that a team of engineers would inspect the stability of the pillars and roof in Veera Vasantha Rayar Mandapam, on Sunday. However, the engineer teams could not inspect the damaged part of the temple as the heat was still on the pillars. 

Sources inside the temple said that as the heat is still on the pillars, water is sprayed on the pillars to cool. They also added that the pillars are expected to cool down by Monday. Only if the temperature cools down the engineers would inspect and only after inspection the rubble would be removed, said sources. 

However, all the shops in the Vasantha Rayar Mandapam and in ‘Pudhu’ Mandapam remain closed. On Sunday, Madurai Central MLA, PTRP Thiagarajan, inspected the damaged parts in the temple and said that he would submit a report to government about the damages to the temple structure.