(Eds: Adds details)Mumbai, Dec 29 (PTI) About 15 employees of the TV9Marathi channel working the night shift had a providentialescape when a fire broke out shortly after midnight in a pubabove their ground floor office.
The midnight blaze started in the 1 Above pub on theterrace of the Trade House Building in the Kamala Millscompound, killing 14 people, including 11 women, officialssaid today.
The fire, which also injured 21 people, soon spread tothe Mojo's Bistro on the third floor, one level below,disrupting the services of several channels, including TimesNow.
The roof collapsed and the entrance to the TV9 Marathioffice was blocked, said Sanjay Jadhav, a programme producerwith the news channel.
Recalling the horror, Jadhav said, "I was on the nightshift. We heard people screaming at the cafe. We thought it'sdue to the party which was on at the cafe and the music."When he came out of the office, he saw that a fire hadbroken out at the roof-top cafe.
"The main entrance of our office was blocked due tothe fire. I raised an alarm and about 10 to 12 people came outthrough the fire exit," said Jadhav.
Jadhav said he and his colleagues saw the temporaryroof made of bamboo burning and falling down to the groundfloor.
"Had we been late by five-10 minutes, we would have beentrapped inside. It was a narrow escape for us," Jadhav added.
A fire official said people rushed to the washroom ofthe restaurant to escape as they did not find any proper fireexit and were asphyxiated to death.
Services of Mirror Now and Zoom TV, with offices adjacentto the building where the fire broke out, were hindered as theblaze engulfed their dish antenna, said a senior Mirror Nowjournalist.
He said about 10 to 15 employees of the news channelrushed to the headquarters in New Delhi to start production.
"The magnitude of the fire was huge, disrupting ouroperations temporarily," Times Network said in a statementissued here.
Times NetworkÂ’s News channels - Times Now, Times NowHD, ET Now and Mirror Now - are operational now.
The English entertainment channels -- Movies Now, MoviesNow HD, MN+, MNX, MNX HD, Romedy Now, Romedy Now HD and Zoom-- will be back on air shortly, it added. PTI AVI NP AA NRBMIN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.