The fire that broke out at Meridian CHS at Sector 6 in Nerul on Thursday night is suspected to have been caused by a short circuit in flat number 1403 on the 14th floor in the A wing of the building.
The flat owned by architect and hotelier Satish Gowda was rented out 18 months ago to two foreigners who worked at Reliance Corporate Park in Ghansoli. The tenants, Zhu Yumo and Charlie, had gone out for dinner at the time of the incident.
Mr. Gowda, who stays at Sea Breeze CHS at Sector 14 in Nerul, said, “I had provided the tenants with a fully-furnished flat. No cooking was done in the house, but there were two empty cylinders in the kitchen. The fire seems to have started because of a short circuit. The flat was gutted in the blaze.”
Skylift helps firefighters
‘The fire is believed to have started at 10.30 p.m. as residents noticed it only after 10.45 p.m. Mr. Gowda said he learnt about the incident at 11.30 p.m. and rushed to the housing society.
He said, “The fire brigade had reached the spot by then and were trying to douse the fire. However, their equipment lacked the power to shoot jets of water into the flat up in flames on the 14th floor. I then called up an acquaintance in the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) and arranged for a Bronto Skylift, which helped the firefighters access the 14th floor of the building.”
Yogesh Bagga, resident of the adjacent flat no. A 1402, said the main door of his house had turned black after the fire. He said, “I was lying on my bed and about to sleep when my wife told that she could she smoke coming out of the next flat. I first thought someone was smoking. When we realised that it was a fire, my daughter alerted the fire brigade and we rushed down.”
Dr. Sushil Zope, resident of A 1404, said he was watching TV when he saw smoke entering his house from beneath the main door. He immediately grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to douse the blaze. He said the main door and electric sockets in his house were damaged.
Alert neighbour
M.N. Mishra, secretary of the society, said that a resident of a neighbouring highrise, Acropolis, saw heavy smoke billowing out of Meridian. The resident alerted the guards of his building and they informed the security personnel at Meridian.
Mr. Mishra said, “We rushed to 14th floor and pulled the hose of the firefighting system. We then broke the security door and the main door of the flat, and tried to douse the fire. However, the flames were too huge to be controlled.” Paresh Nayar, chairman of the society, said the fire also damaged the lobby of 14th floor and the elevator. Mr. Nayar said, “We made the residents of the 55 flats in the A wing to evacuate. We now have to conduct a structural audit of the flats.”
Akash Dhakre, electrical inspector from the Public Works Department who inspected the flat, said power supply to the A wing was disconnected and later restored till the 12th floor. Mr. Dhakre said, “After the fire was doused, a lot of water had entered the 13th and 14th floors. Power to these floors can be restored only after a licensed electrical contractor does a thorough check-up and gives a positive report after testing the wiring.”
Mr. Dhakre said though the fire seems to have been caused by a short circuit, he can finalise it only after recording the statements of the guards and confirming if any power line had tripped. He said, “Short circuits happen due to overloading and lack of an earth leakage circuit breaker in the wiring.”
In the nick of time
Mr. Nayar said that the society was undergoing renovation and scaffoldings were erected around the building. He said, “We feared that the scaffolding might catch fire and the blaze would spread to the other flats. Fortunately, the fire brigade was able to douse the fire in time. A few bamboo poles that crashed from the scaffolding have been cleared.”
Amrutanand Borade from the Nerul fire office said that the Bronto skylift reached the society past midnight. The skylift helped the firefighters reach the 14th floor and douse the fire in 20 minutes. The firefighters left by 3 a.m. after carrying out the cooling process. He said, “Residents were unable to control the fire using the society’s fire hydrant system as its water pressure was low.”
Officials said that the NMMC in 2015 had given the housing society, which has a total of four wings and 189 flats, a fire no-objection certificate, which is valid till March this year.
