Nagarathpete fire: Narrow bylanes hinder rescue operations
'It was very difficult to fight the fire. We tried our best but could not bring the three stranded people alive,' said one of the firefighters, who along with the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel, made a heroic struggle to save lives over an operation lasting 12 hours. They cut exhausted and anguished figures, their brown uniforms covered with soot and grime after the rescue operation.
Three people, including two children, were trapped on the third floor of the four-storey building where the fire broke out around 3 am on Saturday. In total, five people died in the suspected short-circuit fire accident.
Due to dense smoke and extreme heat, firefighters used smoke extractor and Breathing Apparatus (BA) cylinders to enter the building. With the narrow road leaving no space for heavy vehicle movement, five fire tenders were parked nearly 400 meters away from the spot. It took 20 minutes for the firemen to connect water pipes over the long stretch to control the blaze.
A firefighter, who was part of the operation, said that to control the blaze, two teams operated from the neighbouring building's rooftop and two from the ground level. While two charred bodies were recovered, rescuing the three people trapped on the third floor proved more challenging as the door was locked from outside and packed with kitchenware.
As the fire kept intensifying, the rescuers were unable to enter the building. Later firefighters and SDRF drilled a hole through the adjacent building to check for survivors and used metal cutters to break open the gates, door and grills. The bodies of three people trapped inside the house were finally recovered around 2.40 pm on Saturday.
Another firefighter pointed out that as per fire safety norms, the staircase width should be at least 1.6 metres, but here it was so narrow that only two people could move at a time.
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