Kolkatas crying shame

The death toll climbed overnight,rising dramatically from the six announced in the evening to 24 early on Wednesday.

Just past midnight Tuesday,when Fire Brigade personnel managed to enter the worst-affected area,a grisly discovery was made next to an iron-grille gate leading to the terrace lay 17 bodies. One person was still clutching a bunch of keys,suggesting that the victims made desperate attempts to unlock the grille gate before fire engulfed them.

We have names of 20 people who are still missing. As of now,the death toll is 24. Five of the bodies are yet to be identified. Most victims belong to the 18-30 age group, said Jawed Shamim,Joint Commissioner of Police. The caretaker of the building and his assistant have been arrested for negligence and other charges. An FIR was lodged against caretaker Tarun Bagadia and his assistant Ramshankar Singh,Kolkata Police Commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakraborty said. The promoter of the building was said to be absconding,adds PTI.

As per records with the KMC,the building was initially a four-storeyed building. It is alleged that two floors were added illegally in 1984,and that civic authorities asked for a plan only after the residential and commercial units had been sold and people settled on the additional floors.

The two floors,the fifth and sixth,were regularised, alleged Javed Ahmed Khan,leader of the Trinamool Congress and a KMC councillor.

But Debashis Kar,DG II,Building,KMC,said: We do not understand why the issue of illegal construction is being raised. Two floors were constructed without the sanctioned plan but for that they were penalised later. Everything is on record.

Kar could not explain why KMC engineers allowed the promoter to go ahead with the illegal construction. We do not have time to maintain vigil on each and every building, said Kar.

D P Biswas,Additional Director General,Fire Services said: The additional structure on the two upper floors did not match with the British structure. The entire structure collapsed very fast as soon as the fire started spreading. The load-bearing capacity of the structure was also very poor.

There was a fire exit in the building. But it was not used. We spotted it today. When we asked for the floor plan to trace the fire exit,the KMC told us they do not have one, said Achintya Mukherjee,Divisional Engineer,Fire Services.

Yet the Fire department,responsible for fire-safety inspection in all high rises,never inspected the building. With the existing resources,it is not possible to inspect all buildings as we are short on staff, said a Fire department official.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee visited the building and instructed the police and Fire Brigade to rescue anyone still trapped inside. He was said to have asked the KMC to pull down the damaged portion of the building which the state government ordered to be vacated.

It is not clear what sparked the fire but state forensic department officers are not ruling out sabotage. Though Fire Brigade officials believe that a leaking gas cylinder or short-circuit may have been the cause,a senior State Forensic Laboratory SFL official,who inspected the site,said the forensic team found welding machines on the fourth floor.

We have spotted a welding zone where several welding machines were found. Welding work was going on in a commercial unit on the fourth floor, said the SFL official.

The forensic team also across a chemical substance near the lift on the ground floor. Prima facie we have two presumptions as far as the cause of fire is concerned. The first is that welding work sparked the fire. The second suggests that the source of fire was at the ground level,at the base of the lift. Since the lift chamber is hollow,fire can spread easily. It is possible that the lift caught fire first,that the source might have been on the ground floor, said the official.

SFL Director Dhurjati Prasad Sengupta said: Initially,we cannot rule out any possibility including sabotage. After testing samples,we start the process of elimination.. We have collected samples and visited all the floors,starting from the ground to the sixth floor.