“Oh the miserable and
calamitous spectacle!” wrote John Evelyn in 1666, “mine eyes … now saw above 10,000 houses all
in one flame.” The conflagration he witnessed from 2-5 September destroyed much
of the medieval metropolis, swallowing 400 streets, 13,200 houses, 87 churches,
and 44 livery halls. Many of the City of
London’s most iconic buildings were consumed: St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal
Exchange, Newgate Prison, Christ’s Hospital, even Whittington’s Longhouse, one
of the biggest public toilets in Europe, in the Vintry. Evelyn was aghast at
the destruction of so much of the medieval centre: “London was, but is no
more”. Yet this wasn’t exactly true. By
the time of the fire, only a quarter of London’s population actually lived in
the walled city, compared to three-quarters a century earlier. The growing
eastern suburbs like Wapping and Stepney were left unscathed – as were much of
Holborn, the Temple, western Fleet Street, the Strand, and the emergent squares
of the West End.
Last year, in a
fire accident, 300 years of history was wiped out in a devastating fire as
England's oldest hotel got reduced to a
charred and crumbling shell. It was Royal
Clarence Hotel in Exeter caught alight and 110 firefighters tackled the flames. The blaze thought to have started at art
gallery in the city centre before spreading to 17th-century structure ~ a
structure that had survived for more than 3 centuries was reduced to rubbles in
a day.
Back home, it was
the talk of the town. In July 1975, the
city’s most iconic building, the tallest structure at that time, was on
fire. Those were not the times of media,
mobs and selfie takers – the fire that reportedly was first observed on the
first floor in the morning spread rapidly to the floors above through several
vertical openings and shafts. The incident necessitated deployment of the entire
fire fighting resources of the city, including units from the Chennai Port
Trust, refineries, and so on. The operations continued overnight and concluded
at about 6.00 pm the following day. During the initial stages, the
fire-fighting operations were seriously hampered due to falling splinters of
glass, burning fragments and molten metal from window frames made of aluminum.
In addition, heavy sea breeze aided the rapid spread of fire. As the city
hydrants had paucity of water, the fire-fighting operations mostly depended
upon the fleet of water lorries provided by the Corporation of Chennai which
were utilized for relaying water from the Cooum river about 0.5 km away. It is another story that Coovum had water and
was not a sewerage drain those days !
There have been
some more – each sensational when they occurred for varied reasons too. Spencer’s landmark building in Mount road was
on fire in 1983, and later the city’s first mall sprung up. Moore market was on
fire – later Allikulam complex was vacated and Southern Railway Automated
Reservation Complex came in its place.
Madras GPO, Chepauk Palace and many other buildings have had some
devastating fires.
A web search
reveals the towering inferno on fire. Towering Inferno movie was action–drama disaster film produced directed
by John Guillermin, featuring an
all-star cast led by Paul Newmanand Steve McQueen, released in 1974 a JV of 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. This is about Campbell Shopping
Complex fire, a major disaster in
Malaysia that occurred in Apr l 1976 at
Jalan Campbell, Kuala Lumpur. The entire
shopping complex including its 20-storey office tower block was completely destroyed
in the fire accident. The raging fire lasted for about 30 hours,
claiming the life of one victim and a huge property loss. The complex had been opened in May 1973, which was at that time Kuala Lumpur's first
high-rise shopping complex. The Fire
Protection Association of Malaysia (FPAM) was formed the same year after the
incident occurred.
A few months ago, a
shopping centre and surrounding buildings in Oderzo, Italy, was engulfed in flames. Local emergency services reported there was
no one in the building at the time of the fire and that no injuries have
occurred. The cause of the fire was not known.
Recently, hundreds of terrified shoppers had to be evacuated from a burning shopping mall in
Moscow. It was a severe fire burning down the plastic exterior of the building and
set two cars on fire. Firemen contained the blaze after evacuating around 500
shoppers. No casualties were reported.
There have been
some relatively smaller fire accidents, sadly there have been casualties, loss
of life. When a fire strikes, it is
devastation, the life of people involved suddenly turns down, and mostly they
are brought down kneeling down. It is a time of disaster and suffering that
people require support. In this angle,
let us not spread any rumour on the fire, its cause, extent and various other
aspects of the fire accident of Chennai Silks, situate in the crowded T Nagar.
One thing is to be
appreciated is the news that even during such crisis, the management has reportedly
paid the salaries to its staff and had relocated them in their other shops.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
3rd June
2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment