Two buildings fall after blaze; narrow lanes hit rescue ops

Firefighters on Friday afternoon doused a massive blaze that broke out at Chandni Chowk’s Bhagirath Palace market, around 15 hours after it was first reported, fire service officers involved in the operations said. Four buildings collapsed and around 150 shops were gutted in the inferno, with traders calling the blaze the biggest tragedy for the market in recent times.

The fire control room had received a call reporting the incident at around 9.20pm on Thursday, said Delhi fire officials, adding no deaths or injuries were reported.

Delhi Fire Service (DFS) chief Atul Garg said the fire has been doused but small fires will continue to occur till the entire material present in the buildings has not been extinguished, which is a part of their cooling-off operations. According to DFS, the fire started at one shop in a narrow lane and quickly spread across the entire street, impacting shops on both sides.

“About 80 fire tenders were pressed into service to put out the blaze, which was doused at around 12pm on Friday,” a fire service official said, on condition of anonymity.

The official said that at present, cooling-off operations are underway.

“More buildings can collapse any time, and they are showing all the signs of it. They have tilted and developed cracks, which is the biggest giveaway. The shops were selling electronics, which means that after the fire, they would have produced high amounts of heat. If we try to expose these to oxygen, then they are likely to explode. Therefore, we’ll wait till after the cooling-off operations,” he said.