Plastic material and other goods worth Rs 4 crore were gutted in a massive fire that broke out at a plastic chair manufacturing factory, Century Molding Pvt ltd near Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) plant in Chhola area in the afternoon on Thursday.
More than two dozen fire tenders were pressed into service to pacify the colossal fire huge dark smoke cloud of which were visible from far areas.
The fire which broke in the afternoon rapidly spread in the factory and took such a massive form that the neigbouring residential area was evacuated to avoid harm to the residents. Panic prevailed in the area after fire tender vehicles rushed to the spot.
The workers inside the factory were evacuated soon after the fire broke out. Initially the workers tried to pacify the fire but failed and fire brigade was informed.
In the factory three explosions were heard during the fire which was due to the explosion of the three lPG cylinders at the factory. The fire spread rapidly and the food stalls which were adjacent to the factory were gutted in fire.
After the fire tenders reached the spot they faced problems to reach the factory by crossing congested roads which delayed the process of pacifying the fire and was one of the reasons of the spreading of the fire.
SHO Gautam Nagar Mukhtar Qureshi said that fire broke out at around 3:30 pm at a furniture factory near Union Carbide. In the fire apart from the huge loss of the factory owner only one person sustained injury and no casualty was reported in the incident.
The unit Century Molding furniture owned by Satosh Gidwani is a manufacturing unit of plastic furniture. The possible reason which was found initially of the fire broke was sparks in welding machine which soon spread across the factory due to presence of huge quantity of plastic and chemicals in factory.
Fire in-charge Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) Sajid Khan said that 35 fire tenders took three hours to pacify the fire.
Meanwhile a short circuit borne fire erupted at a hotel in MP Nagar zone II on Thursday. The short circuit borne fire was pacified by fire tenders who rushed to the spot after fire erupted at Sankalp restaurant. No one was injured in the
incident. The fire tenders were able to pacify the fire within half an hour.