Chennai: A minor fire broke out at a 15-storey building in SRM University campus located in Kattankulathur in neighbouring Kancheepuram district damaging the false ceiling among other things in the second-floor classroom, from where the fire reportedly originated, on Saturday.
No casualties were reported. Five tenders were pressed into service that doused the fire at the four-year-old building in an hour’s time.
Before the fire tenders arrived, the students from all the floors were evacuated and hand-held extinguishers were put to use by the varsity security staff.
Being a weekend, the students strength was skeletal. All five lifts operating in the building were stopped.
Smoke billowing out of the building was visible from a few km radius. “Had the fire broke out on the higher floors, it would have been a disaster. We were able to put out the fire with the help of four tenders. Thankfully, it was lunch time and most of the students of EEE classroom were out when the fire started”, said a TNFRS official. Cops who downplayed the incident claimed that they were yet to receive any complaint from the university regarding the fire.
