Fire in central Kol high-rise, 50 rescued, none injured

Kolkata: Fire broke out in a five-storey building on Mangoe Lane in central Kolkata on Sunday evening. Firemen rescued 50 people, trapped in the residential building, that also houses some offices. Four fire tenders doused the flames within an hour. No casualty was reported. The fire that was spotted on the ground floor near a meter box around 8.25pm spread to the building in no time. The residents who could not come out of the building mostly ran upstairs to save their lives. A woman in her 70s, who was traumatized after being trapped at home during the blaze, was evacuated with the help of a stretcher by the firemen. “One of my neighbours alerted me about the fire. As we tried to go down, we found the entire staircase up in flames. I ran upstairs, grabbing my 11-month-old baby in my arms,” Nitu Verma, a fifth-floor resident, recounted. “The fire seems to have started from the meter box on the ground floor. We could rescue all the residents,” said a fire official.