CANACONA, FEB 16
Goods worth over Rs 7 lakh were gutted in a fire after two temporary kiosks were completely destroyed in the busy lane of Palolem main beach entrance on Sunday at about 3.25 am.
According to fire services, after they got a call in the wee hours of Sunday, they rushed to the main beach at Palolem only to see that the fire had completely engulfed both the iron-sheet shades leaving no chance to save stocks raging in fire inside.
Fire service sources informed that one of the kiosks belongs to Elias Omar Mujeed of Kerala and was having clothes, handicrafts items, chappals, shell items and sunglasses, while the second gutted kiosk belongs to Gawri Vithal Kanjaya of Gujarat having clothes and blankets.
Fire service has put the loss to Rs 95,000 to the first and Rs 80,000 to the second kiosks. However, sources informed Herald that the losses could be anything between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 4 lakh, respectively.
A visit to the site provided sorry state of the both the affected families, staring helplessly at the dust created by the fire, where they lost their every saleable items.
A foreign national helped to put up a display board requesting for monetary help to the families in distress.
Short circuit is learnt to be the cause of the accident, where unfortunately not a single temporary kiosks operating have any provision of fire extinguishers to meet such eventualities.
It was a lucky escape to the nearby kiosks lined up on either side of busy Palolem main beach entrance lane. Locals have opined that if it was not for the early morning calm, a little breeze could have caused a catastrophe in the entire locality.
However, fire services maintained that their timely intervention helped in saving a backside building, which otherwise would have been in flames.
The fire-fighting team that took part consisted Sub Officer K D Sail, Sr Fire Fighter N V Thakkar, Driver/Operator J J Rodrigues, fire fighters D A Dessai, S K Dessai and N R Salinke.
