Mumbai inferno kills four

added. Several illegal alterations were made to the structure, and the builder used the refuge area, meant to save residents in the event of a fire, to build more flats.

The fire brigade rescued at least 35 people.

“Crystal Tower’s firefighting system was not operational,” said P Rahangdale, the chief fire officer.

“Despite being a high-rise, it did not have a refuge area, fire alarms or a riser system.

There was an open electric duct in the centre of the building, which should have been sealed. This acted as a literal chimney and carried the dense smoke to the upper floors. All corridors were smoke logged,” Rahangdale said.

The Mumbai civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, disconnected electricity and water to the building until it complied with fire safety rules. The fire brigade declared the building unsafe and sealed it.

This is the fourth blaze in Mumbai since June. On June 1, a fire broke out at Scindia House in south Mumbai.

On June 9, a part of Patel Chambers in south Mumbai’s Fort Area collapsed after a fire. And on June 13, a fire engulfed the top three floors of the 32-storey Beaumonde Towers in Prabhadevi in Dadar, a short distance away from Crystal Tower.

No casualties were reported from any of these incidents. But the worst fire in recent times broke out in a restaurant in the Kamala Mills area of Lower Parel shortly after midnight on December 29 last year. The fire swiftly spread to other buildings, killing 14 people.

PRATIK CHORGE/HT Four people died and 16 others were hospitalised after inhaling smoke when a fire broke out at a residential building, Crystal Tower, at Parel in Mumbai on Wednesday in an incident reminiscent of a restaurant fire that claimed 14 lives in the Kamala Mills area last December. Civic body BMC said the building did not have an occupation certificate, and that a legal challenge to an eviction notice it issued to 58 flat owners in 2016 is still pending in court.