Firemen rescue 5, find three bodies six hours after blaze

Mumbai: Three persons were killed and nine others suffered injuries, including eight

firemen

, after a major

fire

engulfed the seventh floor of an 11-storey commercial building in Goregaon (W) on Sunday.

The

deceased

were identified as Naimuddin Shah (25), Ramavtar (45) and Ram Tirathpal (45). While Shah’s body was found on the seventh floor, the other two bodies were found in a lift stuck between the fourth and fifth floors, nearly six hours after the fire broke out.

“Of the eight injured fire officials, two suffered excessive smoke inhalation during rescue operations,” said chief fire officer P S Rahangdale. They have been admitted to hospital.

The other fire officers suffered cuts and bruises and minor burns, said an official.

Around 4.30pm, the fire broke out on the seventh floor of Techniplex Complex on SV Road. Five fire engines, four water tankers and an ambulance were rushed to the site, said officials from the civic disaster management department. Traffic was halted on SV Road for a brief period as a precautionary measure.

Fire officials said as the blaze was confined to the

electrical duct

, smoke and heat travelled through all 11 floors of the glass facade building, which consists of a basement and two podiums and houses a bank on one of the top floors.

As it was a Sunday, there were very few people inside the commercial building.

According to initial reports, only five men, who were doing some internal structural work on the seventh floor, were stranded inside the building. “As thick, black smoke billowed out of the windows, the five

labourers

could not find their way out,” said a senior fire official. “Even as we called for the 81-m ladder from the Borivli fire station, our men rushed into the building. They found four of the men and carried them down the stairs, out to safety. The fifth man was brought out through the window using the 81-m tall ladder.”

After the fire was brought under control, locals told firemen that three men were still missing. Fire officials rushed back into the building to look for them even as cooling operations began. They found Shah lying unconcious on the seventh floor. He was rushed to the nearby Siddharth Hospital, where he was declared brought dead. Half an hour later, they found the bodies of Ramavtar and Tirathpal inside a lift stuck between two floors .

Local BJP corporator Deepak Thakur said: “The fire brigade, along with the local police, did a very good job in rescuing those stranded inside the building. As it is a glass facade structure, they had to break a few windows to let out the smoke.”

In another incident, a fire broke out in the ground-floor office of the four-storey Bothara building on VP Road in Bhendi Bazaar at 2pm. There were no casualties.