Dongri fire: Traders recall night of horror

Until Sunday night, Noor Baug, more than 60 years old, boasted garages and vehicle accessory outlets, along some garment shops. Nine hours later, on Monday morning, only charred shutters, twisted metal and heaps of debris remained

MUMBAI: “Bhaago, aag lagi hai! Aag lagi hai!” (Run, there’s a fire!) The words rang in his ears all day, as Mohammed Sahib, 35, surveyed the runs of his business at Noor Baug in Dongri on Monday.

As Mumbai celebrated Diwali on Sunday night, a fire tore through the Noor Baug market, which housed 92 galas, each one with shops and establishments within them (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

As Mumbai celebrated Diwali on Sunday night, a fire tore through the market, which housed 92 galas, each one with shops and establishments within them. Until Sunday night, Noor Baug, more than 60 years old, boasted garages and vehicle accessory outlets, along some garment shops. Nine hours later, on Monday morning, only charred shutters, twisted metal and heaps of debris remained.

Sahib owned a unit that manufactured plastic bags used to pack clothes and was inside the unit when the fire broke out. He had finished dinner and was scrolling on his mobile phone when he heard people shouting.

“Children had been bursting firecrackers on the other side of the road throughout the evening. We thought it was a small fire. But one of my workers stepped out to check and saw flames engulfing a structure and told us to run,” Sahib recalls.

Firefighters battled the blaze all night and it was extinguished only at 7:23am on Monday. Shopkeepers and traders spent the night on the street.

With cooling operations underway, shopkeepers began returning to their establishments to sell whatever could be salvaged to scrap dealers. The rest was left to be cleared by municipal workers. Years of earnings were reduced to ashes as shopowners and their families sat around at the site. Each shopkeeper claims to have lost goods worth lakhs.

Yaseen Khan, 47, a readymade garment shop owner, was among those trying to dispose of the burnt remains of his stock. As he negotiated with a scrap dealer, he said, “Everything we had stocked for Diwali has turned into scrap. We cannot afford to leave it here. We will take whatever we can get for it.”

The Dongri Unique Society, which represents the gala owners at Noor Baug, were in discussions with builders for redevelopment.

Ravindra Ambulgekar did not comment on the cause of the fire. “Cooling operations are ongoing and investigations are underway,” he told HT.

Cong MLA seeks probe into alleged delay in fire brigade response

Congress MLA Amin Patel has sought an inquiry into the alleged 45-minute delay in the Mumbai Fire Brigade’s response to the fire at Noor Baug in Dongri, which gutted a large number of small-scale industrial units on Sunday night.

In a letter to additional municipal commissioner Prajakta Lavangare-Verma, Patel said the Memonwada and Wadi Bunder fire stations are three minutes from the location, and the Byculla fire station is five minutes away. And yet, he said, the first fire engine took nearly 45 minutes to reach the site of the blaze, by which time the fire had spread considerably. He also asked why the fire had not been escalated from a Level-II incident to Level III, given its scale.

The resultant financial losses to the traders are enormous, Patel said in his letter, calling for the suspension of the chief fire officer pending action in the matter.

Denying any negligence, chief fire officer Ravindra Ambulgekar said fire tenders had reached the narrow lanes on time. “The fire had escalated by then. There are unauthorised constructions, buildings, and the legality of structures should first be verified. There are a lot of LPG cylinders stored illegally and a huge number of godowns where chemicals and highly combustible materials are illegally stored in Dongri. Bring that under control before blaming the fire brigade,” he said.