Hyderabad: Chaos erupted in Chandanagar on Friday evening after a massive blaze tore through commercial buildings on the main road, reducing two showrooms to ashes and damaging a nearby fertility hospital.
The fire started at the Centro showroom, which had recently been reopened in the same building where a fire had previously occurred. This time, the spark came from a short circuit in the store’s illuminated name board. Within moments, flames surged up and quickly engulfed the entire structure. Alert staff members bolted out of the showroom just in time as fire spread uncontrollably.
Everything inside was lost.
The flames then leapt into the adjacent RK Collections showroom, gutting that property too in a matter of minutes. Next in the fire’s path was the neighbouring Womb Fertility Hospital. Though the hospital escaped major destruction, flames did lick the building and singed several air-conditioning units.
Fire crews arrived late to the scene, by which point the damage to Centro and RK Collections was already complete. At Womb, hospital staff had already begun evacuating patients and personnel as smoke crept in. A few ACs were burnt before firemen managed to contain the spread.
Efforts to activate the fire safety pipeline system inside the hospital proved useless. Fire officials on site expressed frustration, saying the equipment appeared to be merely decorative, offering no real protection when it mattered.
Adding to the difficulty, water in the first round of fire trucks ran out during operations. Officials had to call in water tankers from the Water Board to keep the effort going. Later, a heavy-duty “Baahubali” fire engine was brought in to bolster the operation. Over 10 fire engines worked for hours to finally bring the flames under control.
Traffic came to a standstill for kilometres along Chandanagar main road. Fire trucks struggled to navigate through the clogged roads, and curiosity seekers collected around the area. Police were compelled to use lathi charge to drive back the spectators and make way for rescue forces.