LUDHIANA: The residents of Jaswant Nagar, Bindra Colony, woke up on Saturday morning to a deafening blast, smoke, and giant flames leaping out of an adjoining hosiery unit. As the area is thickly populated and neighbours more factories, the fire brigade first evacuated the area and then went about removing LPG cylinders.
Such was the panic caused by the blaze that firemen, at one point of time, were in a dilemma on how to control the situation. They took two LPG cylinders out of the factory’s ground and two others were removed from an adjoining unit. They also removed diesel from a generator kept in an adjoining factory.
Chander Shekhar, one of the residents of the area, said the first blast triggered panic and the second one got everyone worried about neighbouring buildings. “Police asked us all to vacate the houses because we could be in trouble,” he said.
Another resident Deepak Arora said this the first time he saw such a big fire. He said they were worried about the spread of fire in other buildings because all structures have common boundary walls.
Another local, Rakesh Vasan, said the flames, at a point of time, seemed too big to be controlled. “The fire brigade were trying, but the blaze was really big. We could see it was difficult for them to douse the flames. Firemen climbed up neighbouring buildings to entiguish the blaze,” he said.
He added that thick smoke in the area was making it difficult for locals to breathe.
Meanwhile, onlookers were seen clicking pictures of smoke and fire on their smartphones and sharing them on social media. The cops were on their toes to keep people away from the fire. The road in front of the building had been cordoned by the cops.
Representative image