As many as 35 employees of the Container Corporation of India ltd (CONCOR), a Government of India undertaking, were evacuated after a major fire swept through a portion of the fifth floor of the new administrative building of the Central Railway at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in south Mumbai on Friday evening.
The fire broke out on the fifth floor of the Central Railway’s new administrative building, where the CONCOR’s offices are located, at around 5.20 pm.
The office of the CONCOR, which handles Railway cargo and provides warehouse services, is right adjacent to the platform number one at the CST. Following the mishap, the services on platform number one (where harbour line trains of the Central Railway arrive and depart from) were suspended for more than a hour as a precautionary measure.
Having initially deployed four fire tenders into service, the Fire brigade rushed additional help — in the form of four more fire tenders and snorkels — to extinguish fire. The fire brigade personnel brought the situation under control at around 7.15 pm.
Though the fire razed for more than two hours, no causalities were reported from the mishap site. “Most of the railway employees had either left their offices at the CST or were in the process of doing so. Since the blaze was restricted to the CONCOR premises, the fire brigade swiftly swung into action and evacuated 35 of the employees stranded there. No casualties have been reported,” an officer of the civic Disaster Management Cell said.
The fire brigade personnel prima facie suspected that an electrical short-circuit might have caused the blaze. “It is only after a full-fledged inquiry that we will be able to pinpoint the specific cause of mishap,” a senior five brigade official said.Following the mishap, vehicular traffic on the busy DN Road and the JJ Flyover, located in the vicinity of the Central Railway’s new administrative building, was diverted to other roads, to facilitate the use of snorkels by fire brigade in extinguishing the leaping blaze.
Another fire was reported from the basement of Ayakar Bhavan, the headquarters of the Income Tax located close to Churchgate railway station, which is less than 2 km from the CST. The fire was brought under control, after seven tenders were pressed into service.Huge quantity of waste paper and themocol stored in the basement of the Ayakar Bhavan was gutted in the blaze, a fire brigade official said.