Massive fire in India's Kolkata city destroys 2,500 shops

January 13, 2008 - 9:16AM

A huge blaze swept through markets and buildings in India's eastern metropolis of Kolkata today, gutting more than 2,500 shops, injuring a dozen firefighters and leaving thousands homeless, officials said.

Fire Services officials said the fire erupted in the Burrabazar area which houses the country's largest wholesale market and some residential areas.

Police Commissioner Gautam Chakraborty said that blaze was extinguished by about 5pm (local time), 14 hours after it began in the early hours. The cause of fire was being investigated.

Hundreds of people were moved out of shops and buildings as the air force and the army helped the fire services put out one of the worst fires in the city.

Traders and residents wailed that they lost everything in the fire and blamed the fire services, saying they reached the blaze late. But fire officials said a water shortage in the city delayed the firefighting effort.

Big clouds of smoke billowed from buildings in the area as the fire quickly spread in the area, burning the clusters of the unplanned markets.

Property worth millions of dollars was damaged in the blaze and thousands of traders were reduced to paupers as their shops were gutted.

Local officials said 500 firemen and 40 fire tenders were used to extinguish the fire, adding that 12 firefighters were injured.

West Bengal Fire Services Minister Pratim Chatterjee told the IANS news agency that traders who had stored flammable articles illegally in the congested area were responsible for the inferno.[/img]

Its really a very big loss and I feel sorry for those which lost their business . I would like to add here that businessmen should not keep highly flammable stuff in their shops to avoid such a huge loss in the future .

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