Up in flames: Fire in Kotri oil mill put out after 12 hours

The roof of the warehouse caved in due to the blaze

HYDERABAD: A fire broke out at a cooking oil mill in Kotri, district Jamshoro, on Thursday afternoon. According to the mill manager, Narayan Das, the fire started around 3pm due to short-circuit and continued into the night. The fire caused the roof of the warehouse, which was estimated to be around 15,000 square feet, to cave in.

Around thousands of kilogrammes worth of canola and soybean seeds were destroyed in the fire. Das claimed that the fire cost him approximately Rs150million in losses.

“We could have extinguished the fire but the fire tenders took hours to respond,” said Das who had to hire dozens of private water tankers to douse the fire as the fire tenders from Hyderabad and Kotri municipality did not reach the mill in time.



Bhagwan Das, the vice-chairperson of the Kotri Association of Trade and Industry (KATI), complained that the two fire tenders of Kotri SITE were out of order. “We keep complaining to the SITE authorities to provide us with proper facilities and make arrangements to respond to emergency situations,” he said while talking to The Express Tribune.  “But they don’t listen.”

The fire was extinguished on Friday morning, nearly 12 hours after it broke.

Town Municipal Administrator Javed Jatoi confirmed it was caused by short-circuit. He added that all workers at the mill were safe as they were evacuated on time.

He claimed that two fire tenders from Kotri, one from Nooriabad and four from Hyderabad were engaged in putting the fire out. Both fire tenders belonging to Kotri SITE area were out of order.

Owners of the mill, Deewan Kisho Mal and Deewan Aado Mal, claimed that more than 60,000 bags of soybean and canola seeds were destroyed. They estimated that they had suffered a loss of roughly Rs150 million to Rs180 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2014.