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Noticing smoke coming out of the top storeys of the seven-floor building that also houses a number of popular restaurants and companies, passersby alerted the Fire Department. Trapped persons broke open the glass window panes of the top storey in panic.
Seven fire tenders were pressed into service to extinguish the fire. Initial reports said nine people were rescued including four who complained of breathlessness. Ambulances from the nearby Manipal Hospital rushed the rescued persons to the hospital. Fire Force personnel claimed that the fire had been completely doused by 6.15 pm.
According to the Fire Force personnel the fire could have broken out from either the canteen or through the air-conditioner’s duct. They said the absence of proper ventilation in the building aggravated the situation adding to the panic. Meanwhile, traffic was disrupted as large crowds of anxious onlookers gathered below the building.
Meanwhile, employees stuck in the building wrote about the fire and their experience on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Kiran Jonnalagadda, a software employee working at a start-up Development Enable on the fifth floor of the building, spoke to The Hindu after being rescued. He said that he saw at least four people jump out of the floors in panic. “People were screaming asking us to stay put and not jump out,” he said.
“We heard a fire alarm at around 4.30 p.m and assumed it is a drill. A minute later we heard there was smoke. So we pulled out the plug points and tried to run out through our door. But we couldn’t because of the thick smoke coming from our floor. We had to wait for a long time before the fire brigade came up. By then, the smoke seemed to have cleared and we rushed down the stairs.”
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