Kochi: A major fire broke out at the cloth bazaar in the busy Broadway market here on Monday morning triggering panic among the residents and commuters.
Around 125 fire and rescue personnel and police officers battled for two hours to contain the blaze. Apart from 22 fire tenders from various fire stations in the district, the engines from Navy, Kochi Refinery and Port Trust rushed to the spot. According to fire and rescue service officers, no casualties have been reported in the incident.
The fire was first spotted at the sewing machine shop K C Pappu & Sons by the employees from nearby shops. They alerted the people inside the shop and they were immediately evacuated. "We saw smoke bellowing from the shop and some sounds from inside around 9.55 am. We immediately alerted the people inside the shop and they ran out.
Thick black smoke was rising above the roof and flames were coming out of the windows," an employee from the nearby shop said. Soon the fire spread to a godown of a textiles shop Bhadra textiles and a hardware godown next to it. The three shops were almost completely damaged.
An alert to the Fire and Rescue Services was sent at 10.01 am following this and the first unit reached the spot at 10.15 am. Considering the magnitude of the fire more fire tenders from various units were alerted and they reached the spot in the following minutes.
Regional Fire Officer, Ernakulam, K K Shiju said that the fire has been totally contained in two hours. "
