Samikhsya Bureau
One fire man was injured due to suffocation while 84 others, who were trapped on the terrace and upper floors of the fire-ravaged Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd Bandra exchange building, were rescued here on Monday evening. Injured Fireman, Sagar D Salve (25), was admitted to the Bhabha Hospital and his condition is reported to be stable.
Around 1510 hrs, a massive blaze engulfed the third and fourth floors of the ground-plus-nine storied building and quickly started spreading upwards, trapping many MTNL employees working on the upper floors of the building.Some MTNL staffers employees, who were out for lunch at that time, said they saw huge clouds of smoke billowing out of the building and immediately alerted their colleagues to move to safety.
As there was no escape route to go down, many of them did the next best thing by rushing towards the upper floors and terrace, which proved to be a life-saver for them.Some of the women wrapped their ‘dupattas’ on their faces, men handtowels, and many were seen frantically waving their hands, kerchiefs and screaming for help from the rescue teams below.
Braving strong winds, calm firemen on sophisticated ladders, managed to reach the terrace and rescued those trapped on the terrace, including several women, many dazed but not in a panic.For the first time in the country, the Mumbai Fire Brigade also deployed its sophisticated firefighter Robot, unveiled last week, costing around Rs 2 crores, to battle the blaze in the MTNL Building.
The firefighting work continued till late evening and the cause of the conflagration is not known, said an official of BMC Disaster Control.The MTNL telephone exchange is located on the busy SV Road and around 31 fire tenders were rushed to fight the conflagration.Police cordoned off traffic on the road to enable rescue vehicles rush to the tragedy site, leading to massive traffic snarls on the north-bound sectors.
School Education Minister Ashish Shelar, who represent Bandra constituency was rushed to the spot, besides Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar and other top civic and police officials to supervise the rescue operations.This is the second major fire to shock Mumbaikars in the past 24 hours.On Sunday, a fire raged through the third floor of Churchill Chambers in Colaba, claimed one life, while another 14 were rescued by firemen from the burning building.
