Fire breaks out at Kolkata glue manufacturing unit, 3 injured

KOLKATA: Three people were critically injured when a blaze fuelled by inflammable adhesives swept through a glue manufacturing unit-cum-godown located opposite Welland Gouldsmith School on BB Ganguly Street on Monday morning.
A fourth person who was stuck on the first floor escaped unhurt when locals rescued him with the help of a ladder.

The fire, which is believed to have originated from the ground floor of 70 Metcalfe Street, travelled to the first floor with such speed that people working there did not get enough time to escape. The asbestos roof was completely gutted and the iron grills in the verandah were twisted within a few minutes of the incident.

Rameswar Mahabir, 48, Alok Kumar, 17, and Gyanendra Lekka, 48, all of whom worked in the manufacturing unit were rushed to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital with 80, 50 and 47% burns respectively.

Five fire tenders took almost two hours to douse the flames. Since the school is located across the road from the gutted unit, it was not affected. But since BB Ganguly Street is a crucial connector between Sealdah and the central business district in Dalhousie, the traffic was disrupted for almost 45 minutes.

“The place was stacked with adhesive, turpentine oil and thinner all of which are highly inflammable. We did not find any fire-fighting mechanism inside the unit. We do not know the exact cause of fire but it seems a short-circuit could have triggered the blaze. A forensic test will reveal the actual cause of fire,” said Kamal Kumar Nandi, the divisional fire officer supervising the rescue operation.

The fire broke out a little after 9am and the fire department received the alert at 9.20am. The affected unit is located on BB Ganguly Street opposite Welland Gouldsmith School and a few hundred meters from the police headquarters in Lalbazar.

Nandi also said that the fire was so intense that it had rendered the structure of the building weak. “The fire did not burn for long but it was so intense that it damaged the physical structure. The asbestos roof is completely burnt and even iron grills have melted. The intensity was high due to the presence of highly inflammable things inside,” said Nandi.

“The three of them work in the unit and stay there at night. In the morning they normally start their work at around 9am which is when the fire broke out. According to eye-witnesses account, all of them were busy working inside when the fire broke out. The fire spread so rapidly that they could not escape,” said an officer of Bowbazar police station.