Chennai: Finance minister D. Jayakumar on Wednesday said the Chennai Silks building would be demolished if violations of rules and regulations are found and assured to take action on concerned officials.
The expenses for extinguishing the blaze should be taken up by the Chennai Silks management, he told reporters here after inspecting the fire accident spot.
The fire was put down on a war-footing, he said and inquiry is on about the causes of fire.
Action will be taken on the shop owner if violations are found, he said. If the instructions given by various departments had been flouted, action would be taken on officials concerned too.
Revenue Minister R. B. Udhayakumar, who also inspected the accident spot, said entire T. Nagar had been brought under security cover. More than 70 fire service personnel were involved in the putting down the fire and over 150 personnel were pressed into service as the blaze was uncontrollable.
Reacting on the mishap, PMK founder demanded that all buildings that had violated norms should be demolished. In 2006, Supreme Court had found over 32,000 buildings had flouted the rules, making the city unfit for living and ordered the demolition of those buildings.
What if it had happened during busy hours?
What would have happened if the fire at the Chennai Silks had taken place during the evening busy hours?
It could have been either disastrous with huge number of human casualties or employees could have doused the fire immediately after it began to spread. Even conservative estimates say there must be at least 10,000 to 20,000 people inside the huge seven-storey building during the evening busy hours - between 6 pm and 9 pm.
"A fire accident like this could have resulted in a stampede during evening hours. Many of commercial buildings in T Nagar do not even have emergency exits. The uncontrolled smoke could have also lead to asphyxiation deaths," noted a senior fire officer, who added that luckily there was no human casualty in the Wednesday's incident that began around 4.30 am.
Of course, the other possibility is that if the fire had erupted during a busy hour, the employees could have noticed it much early and stopped it before it began spreading to other areas. "The fire could have been brought under control in the beginning itself," the officer added.
