A major fire broke out in a firecracker shop at laxmi Market, in Bokaro on Tuesday late night triggering panic. No casualty was reported.
Fire-fighters battled for almost two hours to extinguish the flames. The fire destroyed crackers worth over lakhs of rupees, police said.
According to the eyewitnesses, a tiny trace of fire fell down of the crackers which were displaced for sale and stuffed into the cartons in the shop at around 8.30 PM, soon it ignited the other crackers.
With the help of locals and fire tenders flame was doused, said another eyewitness. Meanwhile flouting the safety norms thousands of cracker shops housed in the Bokaro and Chas; densely populated area.
Blatant violation of safety regulations by cracker vendors in the city is a matter of concerns these days. Cracker venders are hardly bothered to abide by any of the safety guidelines, said Krishan Choudhary a resident of Chas. The cracker shops are found in the lanes and by-lanes where no tanker can reach such congested lanes, he said. “The situation is similar in several areas across the district”, added Krishna.
According to the safety guideline there should be a minimum distance of at least three metres between two shops selling fire crackers and the sellers must have to keep a fire extinguisher, sandbags along with enough water storage but none of the vendors following the guidelines, said Anil a resident of Sector 2 in Bokaro.
Its worth mentioning that only three venders are having license to sell crackers in Chas-Bokaro area but thousands to shops illegally selling crackers and district administration are not paying any heed on it.
According to the Supreme Court’s guidelines, firecrackers that are louder than 120 decibels are banned but several fire crackers louder than 120 decibels rampantly goes on sale across the district.