Staff Reporter
Dimapur, September 19
A major fire broke out at Hazi Park adjacent to Hongkong Market here, reducing 10 shops, including godowns, to ashes today. The inferno which started at around 10 am burnt down goods worth around Rs 3.5 crore.
Even though no loss of life was reported, a few police personnel and civilians suffered minor injuries while trying to douse the fire.
As many as 16 fire tenders from all over the district and from neighbouring state of Assam managed to extinguish the fire at around 2 pm after struggling for more than four hours. The Fire Brigade under Dimapur town with six fire tenders was supported by different fire tenders from Army Supply, CRPF, Khatkatti Police, Chumukedima Fire team, Airport Authority and 50 Coy ASC Supply.
Even as it is suspected that the fire was caused due to a short circuit the goods burnt in some godowns and shops are yet to be ascertained. According to eye witnesses, the fire broke out at around 10.15 am from one of the godowns belonging to one Rakesh Kumar Gupta who runs a Burma cosmetic shop at Hazi Park.
The godown of Chakravarty & Co., one of the major suppliers of FMCG products and various biscuit brands in the State, were amongst the shops reduced to ashes in the blaze. Owner of the godown of New Cold Drinks and T. Egg Centre claimed that his shop’s sell proceeds of the previous day of Rs 1.72 lakhs were also burnt while cold drinks worth Rs 18 lakh and eggs worth Rs 2.50 lakh were also gutted.
Bhola Kumar Gupta whose clothes and Burma goods godown was also burnt down said more than goods worth more than Rs 35 lakh of his godown were completely destroyed.
Goods and commodities like cosmetics, cold drinks, eggs, clothes, oils, pan leaves, tamol, etc were destroyed in the fire.
One of the officials of Fire Brigade Dimapur said traffic jam was one of the major hindrances in carrying out their duty as each fire tender had to fetch water for at least four rounds from behind the Naga Council Office.
According to one of the police officials, the major difficulty in extinguishing the fire completely despite the many fire tenders actively working was due to some commodities which were resistant to water.
Since the buildings at the incident site lie adjacent to each other, the other shops and godowns had to shift their goods to distant places.
Luckily, the matchbox godown and some of the nearby godowns had some explosive materials adjacent to the affected buildings were left untouched by the fire. Some of the nearby houses also suffered losses.
The IRBs, Mahilas and police personnel were seen engaged in controlling the thousands of people who gathered at the site causing difficulties to the people engaged in dousing the massive blaze.
