STRAND WAREHOUSE FIRE, 14th February 2010

On the 14^th of February 2010 at about 1:42 am, the century old Strand Warehouse, located on the Strand Road, near Burra-Bazaar, Kolkata, caught fire. The colossal warehouse was being used by many business entities to stock their goods and products which included inflammables like PVC pipes, paints, garments, chemicals etc., for many decades.

Huge flames engulfed the building on the night of the incident and most of the stock worth many crores was burnt to ashes. The Strand Warehouse, which is a century old colossal structure, was turned to huge debris in a mere few hours. Over thirty fire engines were rushed to the spot to get the fire under control. The West Bengal Fire Department team struggled for over 2 days to get fire under control. Major parts of the building had collapsed by the following day. Traffic on the Strand Road was diverted and the area barricaded immediately to avoid any further injuries to the public. Fire Department and Kolkata Police was prompt to take charge of the situation and act immediately. Apart from getting the fire under control, a major task of the joint forces included managing the crowd of onlookers. Strand Road is not a broad enough road to handle the gathered crowd, media teams, 35 fire engines, police vehicles and on top of all, the rush hour traffic. I must mention here that the deputed police force, the fire department and the volunteers did a commendable job in controlling the situation.

One of the rescue members was trapped inside the structure and later rescued with both his legs seriously injured. No other injuries or casualties were reported.

The blame game had started immediately after the smoke was noticed. The building is owned by the Kolkata Port Trust and KPT had been renting out the building to the traders and stockists of consumer goods and products. KPT is blaming the stockists for stocking inflammable goods in the warehouse without any fire precautionary measures, while the stockists are blaming KPT for not doing the needful as KPT owns the building and it is their responsibility to take the precautionary measures. The Police and the Fire Department were also found blaming the stockists for stocking highly inflammable goods without obtaining any fire license or without taking any precautionary measures. Many feel that these kinds of incidents have become quite common in the Burra-Bazaar area of Kolkata, especially before the business year-end and that these are simply staged to benefit from insurance claims and to evade tax.

Whoever is to be blamed, this incident simply highlights how faulty and ignorant the overall system is. This incident raises many questions- how can the state government and the KPT be so ignorant about such an old and heritage structure, especially when the building was being used by so many people as a business warehouse? Why weren’t regular inspections taking place to check the compatibility of the building for business stocking inflammable goods? Why were the stockists not careful enough to ask for proper precautionary measures when their goods worth crores were at stake? Was it really an accident or a staged incident? Finally, will the real cause of the fire ever come out?