THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Firefighters battled hard late into Wednesday night to contain a massive blaze which swept through a plastic factory at Manvila in the district. The fire broke out late in the evening at the factory and godown of Family Plastics. The four-storey building reportedly contained a huge storage of raw materials and also chemicals, and the conflagration engulfed the entire structure, defeating all attempts to douse it. The blaze was visible from miles around. A preliminary estimate pegged the loss at Rs 500 crore.
By 10 pm, around 30 fire tenders were on the job fighting the fire. Within two hours of the blaze, the district administration also ordered the evacuation of local residents within a radius of one kilometre as the danger from inhaling the toxic fumes became increasingly high. While no casualties were reported, two men - identified as Jayaram Raghu and Gireesh - were admitted to the casualty wing of the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital, reportedly after inhaling the fumes. Their condition is stable, hospital sources said.
The factory and godown is situated inside the industrial estate at Manvila. The fire was first noticed around 7.20 pm. The first shift had ended at 7 pm and a number of the employees were still inside the building taking their bath and preparing to leave. Staff detailed for the evening shift had started arriving by then. On seeing the fire, all of them rushed out, raising the alarm. Local people said they heard multiple explosions from the burning factory.
"It would be difficult to put out the fire. We are waiting for it to subside. But steps have been taken to prevent it from spreading to nearby industrial units,’’ District Collector K Vasuki said. After the alarm was raised, all the firefighting units in Thiruvananthapuram district, and later Kollam, were rushed to the spot. But at the time of filing this report, the fire has been raging through the facility for nearly four hours. Later in the night, the Fire and Rescue Service alerted units in Alappuzha also.
According to the fire and rescue service, nearly 30 units - including that of the Fire and Rescue Service, the Thiruvananthapuram Airport and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) were called in.
Although a short circuit is suspected to be the cause of Wednesday night’s fire, only a detailed investigation can ascertain it.
In fact, a fire had broken out at the factory only two days back. While it was smaller blaze, it nevertheless had taken five tenders to put it out. Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran and Mayor V K Prasanth visited Manvila after being alerted about the fire.