A massive fire broke out in the vegetable market near the city’s iconic New Market area on Monday afternoon.
Shopkeepers said the fire started at around 12.30 p.m. from a decorator’s shop inside the vegetable market. The market complex was home to mostly potato traders. A total of 21 fire engines rushed to the spot. No casualty was reported, firemen said.
Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee soon reached the spot. Although the fire tenders reached the area on time, they faced difficulty navigating through the congested lanes.
The metal structure of the market was damaged and the wooden frames of the fish market nearby were charred.
Stating that the decorator’s shop had been shut for several years, shop keeper Prafulla Sahu said there were no customers inside the market when the fire broke out. A meter box next to the shop also caught fire and it spread rapidly, he added.
“The market opens relatively late at around 10 a.m. There are about 38 shops inside the market and 10 more on the fringes and all of them are destroyed. The losses amount to several lakhs of rupees. All of my shop’s rental documents were inside the shop. All of us [shopkeepers] had rushed out of the market when the fire engines arrived,” Mr. Sahu said and added local shopkeepers first rushed to douse the flames.
This comes barely within a month of a major fire inside a shopping complex in the New Market area. A fire broke out in the Citi Mart shopping complex on April 26 and was brought under control with the help of 27 fire engines and two sky ladders. Drones were also deployed to assess the extent of damage caused to the building. The shopping complex is still closed for renovation.
