Blaze in Business and Finance Centre

A fire erupted at the Business and Finance Centre on II Chandragar Road, causing damage to goods worth millions of rupees. Luckily, there was no casualty in the inferno and all of the people working in the multi-storey building were safely evacuated.

The fire brigade teams successfully brought the blaze under control after a two-hour effort and initiated the cooling process.

According to the Bolton Market Fire Station Fire Officer Muhammad Aslam, the blaze started due to short circuit in the electrical cables running through the air-conditioning ducts.

The flames extended to the fifth and seventh floor and smoke filled the rest of the building, he said. Fire Officer Asif said that due to loadshedding, they could not refill their fire engines on time and had to call in water tankers from the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation to douse the flames.

Officials attribute the fire to a short circuit, fortunately causing no loss of life. Traffic on II Chandragarh Road remains suspended, with queues formed due to the Business and Finance Center fire. Despite ongoing efforts, traffic diversion from the Tower to Jinnah Buridge and Mumtaz Hussain Road to MT Khan Road persists, as reported by traffic police.

Meanwhile, a the spokesperson of K-Electric said about the fire incident in a building on II Chundrigar Road, "K-Electric teams took an immediate action when the fire in the building on II Chundrigar Road was reported. KE teams also reached the incident site instantly to support the fire brigade, rescue teams and the city's administration." The spokesperson further confirmed that according to initial investigation, K-Electric's infrastructure was not involved in the fire incident as substation and other KE equipment in the building was found intact.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2023.