BENGALURU: Fire broke out at UCO Bank located on MG Road causing panic on the busy street on Wednesday afternoon. The fire was completely put off by the staff of firemen within some time. No casualties were reported in the incident.
Officials said that the fire department control room received an alert around 2.30 pm and five fire tenders were rushed to the scene. There was heavy smoke due to the fire and a few were stuck inside the office and they were rescued soon. The fire was completely doused in about 30 minutes.
"Preliminary probe has established that fire started in the AC duct and this caused heavy smoke in the locality. We are investigating the cause for the fire," an official said.
The fire was reported at the Farah Towers building at 2:45 pm on Wednesday. The building housed more than 200 students and employees.
At 3:00 pm, Bharath Kumar (name changed) studying at Emertxe Information Technology noticed smoke seeping in through a closed door. "We were all very scared and just wanted to get out of the building. We had to break the windows for air circulation he said."
Meanwhile, Moula Ali, in-charge of the neighbouring building was notified by the security guard that several students were attempting to jump from the second and third floors. "I and my colleagues ran with more than 20 fire extinguishers and attempted to douse the fire. We also got aluminium ladders to evacuate a few people and managed to rescue two," he said, adding that he noticed only one fire extinguisher in the ground floor of the building.
By 3:06 pm, the fire brigade had reached and was able to manage the massive amounts of smoke and the rescue the remaining 30 to 40 people stuck in the upper levels of the building. No injuries were reported.