Surat: Two workers have lost their lives in a major fire at a five-storey packaging unit in Surat district on Monday morning. According to the police, more than 70 people have been evacuated from the manufacturing unit in the Kadodora industrial area. Some employees working in the unit have also been injured in the incident. The rescue operation is still underway.
Kadodara Police Inspector Hemant Patel said the manufacturing plant of 'Viva Packaging Company' caught fire at around 4.30 am. The fire broke out on the first floor of the unit and immediately spread to other floors as well. Cranes were being used to evacuate workers trapped inside the building, reported PTI.
Processes like saree packaging as well as bag and mask manufacturing were being done in this manufacturing unit. The manufacturing unit belonged to a company named 'Viva Packaging Mill'. More than eighteen fire engines arrived to douse the fire at the unit.
Workers who were on the top floor of the unit panicked after the fire broke out and several of them tried to escape through the windows and pipes of the building, Kadodara police station's inspector Hemant Patel said.
"A worker died after falling from the building's third floor while trying to climb down a pipe to escape the blaze. The body of another worker was found in the basement of the building. He died of suffocation caused by the smoke. Around 145 people were rescued," he said.
All the people rescued from the building were taken to different hospitals for treatment as many of them received injuries during the rescue process, the official said.
Eighteen fire tenders and two hydraulic cranes were rushed to the spot to douse the flames and rescue people trapped in the building, Surat Municipal Corporation's in-charge chief fire officer Basant Pareek said.
It took around five hours to bring the blaze under control, the official said.
"The five-storey building also has a basement from where the fire started and the flames went up to the third floor. The cause of the blaze is yet to be ascertained," he said