Fire breaks out in central Kolkata office building

Blaze broke out at building which also houses offices of LIC, other financial firms

October 19, 2017 12:07 pm | Updated 10:43 pm IST - Kolkata

Up in flames: Smoke billows out of the 16th floor of Jeevan Sudha building on Jawaharlal Nehru Road in Kolkata on Thursday.

Up in flames: Smoke billows out of the 16th floor of Jeevan Sudha building on Jawaharlal Nehru Road in Kolkata on Thursday.

A massive fire broke out on Thursday on the 16th floor of a commercial building in central Kolkata, gutting the global market office of the State Bank of India (SBI).

Thirteen fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the fire that originated from the server room of the SBI’s global department at the Jeevan Sudha building, a fire brigade official said.

‘No fear of data loss’

“The furniture and computer peripherals were damaged in the fire, but there was no fear of data loss as the files were stored in the disaster recovery cells of Mumbai and the local head office in Kolkata,” the general manager (global market office) of SBI, Ventakesh Bharadwaj, said.

No one injured

The chief general manager (Kolkata circle) of SBI, P.P. Sengupta, said there was no news of anyone getting trapped on the floor.

Eyewitnesses said the fire was fast spreading to other floors of the building.

Although it was a holiday for Deepavali, the employees rushed to the site as soon as news of the fire spread, the general manager said.

The building on Jawaharlal Nehru Road has 19 floors and houses the offices of the SBI and the LIC and other financial organisations.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.