Fire at Chennai's Saravana Stores, 2 reported missing

Chennai - September 1, 2008: A major fire broke out in Chennai's shopping paradise - Ranganathan Street. The fire broke out at Saravana Stores in Ranganathan Street, T Nagar - Chennai. The fire broke out on Monday (September 1, 2008) early morning between 5:00 and 5:30. There were 10-15 employees in the shop at that time.

Saravana Stores is a famous shopping complex in Ranganathan Street, T Nagar - Chennai. The shop is thronged by thousands of shoppers daily. The fire occured at the first and oldest shop opened by the group in the area. Ranganathan Street is famous for shopping and thousands of shoppers throng the area daily which houses several retail shops like Rathna Stores, Saravana Stores, Jayachandran Textiles, Textile India, Murugan Stores, GRT and several other Textile and Jewellery shops.

Several Shopping Complexes across T Nagar are constructed in violations of rules. The complexes don't have proper fire fighting equipments and there is no safety route in case of a mishap. The owners use every inch of the building to store their goods and only a small path-way is available for shoppers to go across the store. Several shops store goods even in the staircase leading to other floors.

There were no casualties reported since the accident happened early in the morning. There would have been a disaster if the accident had occured during day or evening time with thousands of shoppers thronging the area.

There were rumours early in the morning that around 15 people are trapped inside the building, but Police confirmed that there are no casualties and people were evacuated safely. But, the employees said that two people are missing who were in the building before fire.

The employees alerted Fire, Police and other authorities around 6:00 AM and several fire tenders were rushed from across the city to douse the fire. The approach roads were narrow and fire tenders faced lot of difficulty to enter them. Two Sky-lifts were pressed into duty with one from the Ranganathan Street side and other through the Natesan Street (backside of the building).

The authorities sought services of Metrowater who provided more than 50 tankers of water. The tankers of other shopping establishments in the area, Hotel Saravana Bhavan, Saravana Stores, Rathna Bhavan and Gitanjali Hotels were pressed into service to fetch water.

Police cordoned off the area and had tough time evacuating the curious onlookers who gathered to see the raging fire. There were several shoppers who came to the area without knowing the incident.

Police ordered all the nearby establishments not to open as the raging fire moved to the adjacent buildings. The Saravana Stores Jewellery shop personnel removed several valuables from the shop to safe places. The Lucky Plaza, a shopping complex on the other side of Saravana Stores was fully gutted in fire.

Authorities said that Diesel was stored in few plastic containers in the building for powering the generator. The authorities are yet to ascertain the reason for fire. An IT Professional informed us that the fire was still on at the 5th floor of the building at around 9:00 PM on Monday night which shows the magnitude of fire.

The shops were opened in the busy Usman Road, but all the shops were closed in Ranganathan Street on Monday. City Police Commissioner visited the area and discussed with the officials. DMK leader Mr Anbazhagan was present in the area overseeing rescue measures.

This accident is an eye-opener to authorities who ignored the safety norms followed in shopping complexes in the area. Most of the shopping complexes in Chennai don't have sufficient fire fighting equipments or fire exits used to evacuate people in case of a disaster. One hopes that the authorities wake-up atleast now and raze structures which are built in violation of the rules to prevent mishaps.

Source : Equity Bulls

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