Four charred to death in factory fire at Bagumara

Surat: The charred remains of the four workers, who died in a major fire in a yarn factory at Bagumara in Surat district, were found 12 hours later on Friday morning.
The fire had broken out in the Eagle Fibre Pvt Limited’s godown on ground floor and engulfed the whole unit before spreading to neighbouring JPG Fibre unit, turning plastic and yarn material there too into ashes on Thursday night. The two units manufactured yarn from plastic granules. Most of the material in these units were highly inflammable. At least, 100 people used to work in one shift at one unit. Fortunately, all the workers in the two units escaped except for the four, who died in the accident.

The deceased were identified as Amol Chauhan, 18, Rinku Munna Ravat, 23, Ramesh Buddhiman Ravat, 19, and Manoj Hiralal Paswan, 36, son of the unit’s labour contractor Hiralal Paswan. Bodies of the four employee of Eagle Fibre Pvt Limited were found under gutted raw material, police said, adding that forensic postmortem would be done on them and DNA samples collected. A case of accidental deaths has been registered at Palsana police station. There were no casualties in the other unit.

A short-circuit in the godown of Eagle Fibre Pvt Limited is suspected to have caused the fire. The factory is owned by Amit Ghanshyam Jajoo and his partners from Bhatar in Surat.

Fire officer Falgun Gadhvi said, “Tin shed and angles made of iron in the unit melted in the fire and collapsed, trapping the workers inside. We cooled the unit but it was not possible for us to enter it on Thursday night.”

Fire officials said there was no fire safety system in the two units having approximately 200x50 feet area. Both the units were adjacent to each other with no space in front or back in the locality for fire vehicles to enter.

Rajkumar Pandiyan, inspector general of police, Surat range, told TOI, “Inadequate firefighting system in the two units has been observed. There was no provision for fire alarm too. Installation of a fire extinguisher in the premises is not enough. We will be carrying out audit in all the units that deal with inflammable material along with fire department. We will ensure all these units install proper firefighting system in their premises. We are awaiting FSL report before taking action against the unit owners.”