Blaze broke out at Navrang Compound near Mahim Fatak and spread through the shanties, affecting 10-12 shops/godowns that stored materials like, wood, scrap, paper, and plastic
Fire brigade douse pocket fires. PIC/SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Rajini Bari, whose family owned the land on which the godowns were charred, was at the scene, seeing all their materials worth over Rs 60 lakh burn down. “We live in Bandra. The moment we heard about the fire, we rushed here hoping the damage was not too extreme, but now we realise that we have nothing left,” she said.
According to the locals, at 11.15 am on Saturday, a fire broke out at the Navrang Compound near Mahim Fatak, close to the Sion-Mahim Link Road in Dharavi, triggering a multi-agency emergency response and disrupting suburban train services. The Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) received the first alert at 12.29 pm. The fire, which locals think started out as a short circuit, spread onto the nearby shanties, leading to three or four cylinders exploding which were inside the shanties.
A cardboard shop charred in fire
“We have no insurance on the shop and its materials, so now we are left with nothing. I have to raise my kids; one of them is still in school, and our savings are not enough to pay the school fees while rebuilding the shanties,” said Bari, who lost her husband around 12 years ago and was raising her two kids with the income they were getting from rented land and the scrap-collecting business they had on the ground floor of the shanty, which was also charred.
Bari had rented out a portion of the shanties to one Shehzad Khan, who had a small shop of cardboard boxes, which was also charred. Khan, who lost about Rs 10 lakh worth of material, said, “The insurance papers have also burnt down in the fire; I am clueless of how to get the money. We have suffered a heavy loss.” Khan said he will visit the bank on Monday to ask them for solutions on how to reclaim his insurance without the papers.
Jaffar Kariyaniya, an eyewitness. PICS/MADHULIKA RAM KAVATTUR
Jaffar Kariyaniya, a witness of the incident, told mid-day, “It was a sudden instance; we couldn’t even think that the cylinders would have exploded. Luckily no one was inside the shanties. The locals rushed to the site and started throwing all the water they could till the Mumbai Fire Brigade came.” The fire affected around 10-12 shops/godowns that stored materials like wood, scrap, paper, and plastic. One of the godowns on the first floor of the G+1 shanty stored clothes, which were badly damaged in the fire.
Deputy Fire Officer S D Sawant, who was at the site on Saturday, said, “We declared the fire to be a level-II, where around 10-12 godowns caught the fire. Right after we got to know about the fire, we asked the railway authorities to shut down the nearby harbour line tracks to avoid any issues with the high-tension wires and the water which we sprayed.”
Rajini Bari
Talking further, Sawant said, “We have not seen anyone injured since we arrived here, but we have asked the police to let us know if anyone had been injured before. We have controlled the fire, and only pocket fires, which are under a lot of material, remain.” “Investigation on how the fire started and spread is under way,” Sawant told mid-day on Sunday.
11.15 am
Time fire started according to locals
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