18 hours on, fire fighting still underway at Crawford market

A day after a massive broke out at a commercial building in a cutlery market in the Masjid Bunder area of south Mumbai, fire fighting operations went on for 30 hours, officials said on Monday late evening. Two fire brigade personnel including a fire station master sustained injuries during the operation and were rushed to nearby JJ Hospital.

The blaze erupted around 4.24 pm on Sunday on the first floor of Ismail building a ground-plus-three-storey structure, located near Jumma Masjid in Masjid Bunder area. The fire which was initially classified as a 'level-3' (major) fire, but later escalated to 'level-4' (Massive) on Monday afternoon, the officials said.

Despite pressing 17 fire engines, 17 jumbo water tankers along with three turn-table ladders and an ambulance, the fire kept on spreading and went out of control. "By 11.30 pm we were covered by fire from all sides on Sunday. However, due to thick black smoke, it has become difficult for the team to navigate into the building and fire started erupting again. Efforts to extinguish the fire still underway," said a senior official from Mumbai Fire Brigade.

During the operation, two fire fighting personnel were rushed to JJ Hospital. One of them was identified as D D Patil (35) - station officer collapsed due to suffocation and Vijay Subhash Chavan (30), fireman suffered a hand injury and suffocation.

The firefighting operations at Cutlery market in Ismail Building were still on while going to press.