Ghost Secunderabad building totters, fireball turns embers | Hyderabad News

HYDERABAD: Day after an inferno swallowed a six-storied building on Minister Road in Secunderabad, firemen first set foot in ground zero early Friday, their boots stamping on smouldering embers, perilously hanging slabs and tottering pillars amidst mounds of wreckage. A burning stench hung heavy even as smoke still billowed from the edges of the crumbling ghost building. And it took more than 20 hours to douse the unrelenting flames with the fire-fighting operation extending till Friday dawn. “It’s like a furnace inside. The heat is unbearable. Everything is charred beyond recognition,” said a fire department official, who accompanied the team inside.
After the twin cellars blew up in a mammoth ball of fire on Thursday, temperatures escalated to extreme levels and a big slab on the first floor came crashing down. This gave ample room for the fire to spread to upper floors and engulf the building, said a fireman, who went inside the wrecked building in the morning. The team stumbled upon collapsed walls and yawning gaps on blackened roofs in ascending floors through which smoke and flames billowed out.

With combustible material stashed on every floor, the fire twice sputtered and raged for sometime late Thursday night and again on Friday, before it was doused with a blanket of water. Despite the marathon mission, low-intensity smoke continued to emanate from the floors till evening.
Firemen attributed the simmering fire to scattered stocks of garments that burst into flames at high temperature. “Businessman Javed who operated from the building had stashed combustible nylon and rexine garments at every nook and corner of the six floors. There were also stocks of printing material and chemicals, which added fuel to the flames,” district fire officer Madhusudhan Rao told TOI.
When the fire started in the cellar at 9.45 am, Javed and his employees were present. “But they delayed making the distress call. We got the SOS around 10.30 am. By this time, thick smoke had engulfed the building. Besides, a strong wind fanned the fire, which turned uncontrollable after a time,” he said.
Setting up a godown with combustible material in a crammed residential area is prohibited.
“Even if they continued with their business, owners needed to comply with fire-safety regulations, but Javed flouted every rule in the book,” said Madhusudhan.