The Hindu : National : Fire at Videocon unit

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Fire at Videocon unit

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: In the third major fire in the city this year, a warehouse of Videocon caught fire on Saturday sparking panic among offices located close by.

The fire, in the State’s IT-hub in Sector Five of Salt Lake on the eastern fringes of the city, raged for around two hours in the afternoon and threatened to affect the IT and IT-enabled services offices nearby too. Thick smoke could be seen billowing out of the godown even from the residential complexes several blocks away.

State Fire Services Minister Pratim Mukherjee told The Hindu from the site that the fire had been controlled. Altogether 10 engines were used to battle the fire.

Chairman of the Videocon Group of Industries Venugopal N. Dhoot told The Hindu that the company suffered only minor losses and he was happy that there were no casualties.

Videocon executives said the warehouse stocked raw materials for colour televisions and also packaging materials such as cardboard boxes and thermocol which caught fire fast. While no estimates could be made to gauge the loss, the materials stocked at the godown were worth about Rs.70 lakh.

It was not immediately known as to what had sparked the fire.

While the fire at Nandaram market in January, which had taken five days to douse, was the biggest so far, the one last week near Howrah had destroyed in three hours the region’s largest flower market.

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