BHUBANESWAR: A fire broke out in the record room of Lokayukta office at Toshali Bhawan on Thursday morning, damaging many important files and documents. However, no one was injured in the incident.
On receiving information at around 10 am, eight to 10 fire personnel along with a firefighting vehicle reached the spot to douse the blaze.
“The fire possibly erupted due to a short circuit in the record room of the Lokayukta office on the ground floor. It took us over 20 minutes to completely douse the flames,” said a fire officer adding, no injuries were reported.
Sources said the files rack near an electrical switch board in the record room was gutted. However, other files and document racks were not affected.
In another development, Odisha Fire and Emergency Services personnel attended to an ammonia gas leakage incident at a potato cold storage facility in Aiginia area here on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.
At about 1.04 am, the fire personnel received information about the ammonia gas leakage at the facility owned by one Sajan Kumar Agarwal.
As highly toxic gas fumes were emanating from the cold storage, the staff of the facility as well as residents of a nearby slum were evacuated from the area as a precautionary measure. The fire personnel then sprinkled water to control the fumes.
The firefighters provided breathing apparatus sets to the two technicians of the cold storage and rushed to the valve from where the gas was leaking.
The leakage was subsequently stopped after a three to four-hour operation which lasted till around 4 am.