Fire at Bangalore’s tallest building

Fire broke out on the first floor of Public Utility Building on M G Road in Bangalore yesterday, spreading panic among the people in the 24-storeyed building.

Police said fire broke out inside a silk saris’ showroom on the first floor of the building on account of a short-circuit around 1 pm yesterday and soon spread to five other shops on the same floor.

Fire force personnel rushed to the spot and rescued people trapped on the first floor of the building with the help of ladders. The authorities had to smash the windows to rescue the people trapped in five shops on the first floor, which were gutted in the fire.

However, no serious damage has been caused to Shankar Nag theatre, popularly known as Symphony theatre, situated in the second floor of the building. The theatre was under renovation when the fire broke out.

Though no casualties were reported, several people, who were on different floors of the building, sufferred minor injuries when they rushed out on hearing the fire alarm. The Public Utility Building is the tallest building in Bangalore, housing a host of offices, showrooms, banks, shops and business establishments, besides restaurants and theatres.

With electricity supply to the building snapped, the escalators stopped functioning, forcing employees working in offices on various floors of the 24-storeyed building to use the staircase to make a hasty exit.

Meanwhile, the authorities blocked the roads leading to Public Utility Building and rushed the fire-fighting brigade to the spot. A total of twenty three fire tenders reached the spot and managed to extinguish the fire in about two hours time. Traffic on the busy road was thrown out of gear.

Since the last several years, the Karnataka State Fire Services Department had been raising an alarm over the absence of fire safety measures at Public Utility Building and had emphasized a need for building the mandatory alternate staircase to serve as an emergency exit in the case of outbreak of fire.

The Bangalore City Corporation, which owns the 24-storeyed tall structure, had even come in for criticism from various quarters for overlooking the National Building Code 1970 that stipulates fire safety measures.