A major fire broke out in Punjab National Bank (PNB) at City Center, Sector 4 under Sector 4 police station, in Bokaro Steel City on Wednesday midnight, triggering panic though none were reported injured.

The fire broke out in the main branch circle office of the bank fully engulfed the department on the first floor while partially others, said DK Gupta PNB official.

This circle office operates 51 bank branches of 14 districts.

According to an eyewitness, the blaze erupted in the first floor of the bank at around 1.00 am, after the fire, smoke soon spread inside the building. Thick smoke covered the entire building causing suffocation to the firefighters.

The fire tenders succeeded in dousing the fire, after a long struggle of three hours. “More than seven fire-fighting vehicles, fire tenders and local peoples were joined hands for the rescue”, said an eyewitness.

The fire destroyed several official goods including documents, furniture, computers and other gadgets, said an eyewitness. According to the fire tenders, fire engulfed the goods of the worth of several lakhs rupees while according to bank’s Zonal superintendent the loss is more than 80 lakhs rupees due to fire.

Meanwhile, bank’s officials blaming reason of ‘short circuit’ (electric) behind the eruption of fire. “There is no loss to the bank’s customer, all data are safe,” said a bank’s top official.

“We are probing the reasons behind the eruption of fire, said an official. ‘Right now its’ quite difficult to access the actual loss but it may assume in lakhs,” he added.