Ghatkopar fire closure report says staircase cables spread blaze

A short circuit in the meter room which spread through electric cables via the staircase up to the fourth floor: this was the cause of the December 17 fire in the commercial building in Ghatkopar according to the closure report of the fire brigade

Mumbai: A short circuit in the meter room which spread through electric cables via the staircase up to the fourth floor: this was the cause of the December 17 fire in the commercial building in Ghatkopar according to the closure report of the fire brigade. The 45-year-old building has no fire NOC, since back then the latter was not a mandatory condition for granting an occupation certificate (OC) by the BMC’s building proposals department.

Mumbai, India - December 17, 2022: One person dead, four injured and 22 others rushed to a hospital following complaints of breathlessness, after fire broke out in the electric meter room of Juno's Pizza Hotel in Vishwas building, a residential building near Parakh Hospital, at Ghatkopar, in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, December 17, 2022. (Praful Gangurde/HT Photo) (HT PHOTO)

The fire at Vishwas, a commercial building in the Pant Nagar area opposite the Ghatkopar East railway station, claimed three lives and injured 11 other victims. Rajendra Ghadge, investigating fire officer, told Hindustan Times, “The main cause was an electric short circuit in the meter room. The fire spread through the electric cabling up to the fourth floor passing through the staircase. Because of the heat and smoke, people suffocated.”

Ghadge said that in order to prevent the recurrence of such an accident, the electric cables needed to be conduited or sealed. “The cables shouldn’t pass through the staircase,” he said. “This is mainly found in old buildings. Those who have such a system need to change the electric wiring, but this isn’t feasible now.”

The BMC’s building proposals department had granted Vishwas building an OC but it did not have a fire NOC, said Ghadge. “We asked them to produce their fire NOC and they couldn’t,” he said. “A fire NOC was not applicable in the past for old low-rise buildings below 24 metres (up to seven floors). That could be the probable reason they didn’t have one. But the building proposals department has been directed to initiate action against the building if there are any other violations.”

The nearby Parakh Hospital located in Khokhani Lane just behind Vishwas building had a fire NOC and had even renewed it. A patient had to be shifted immediately to another hospital when the fire broke out.

Hitesh Karani, owner of the coaching classes in Vishwas building, however said that the cables were not in the staircase area but attached from the outside. “There was a galvanised iron (GI) shed extending over the meter box, which was like a chimney,” he said. “All the smoke and heat got channelised into the staircase because of that GI shed. We have removed it now and are changing the location of the electric meter box so that it won’t be at the entrance of the building.”

The commercial building houses several clinics and a coaching class. There are two restaurants on the ground floor, a testing lab agency on the first floor, a store dealing in chemicals on the second floor, an eye doctor and a chartered accountant on the third floor and private tutorial classes on the fourth.

The victims of the Ghatkopar fire were Korsi Dedhia(46), who was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, and Anjali Bivalkar (47) and Eidish Sahetya (18) who were undergoing treatment at the National Burns Centre, Airoli. Both succumbed to their injuries.