Silvester D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur (EP)

Kundapur, Feb 10: A cashew factory was gutted in fire at Mavinakatte near Vandaru here Tuesday February 10.

The fire that started in a room where cashew kernels were stored later spread to the entire factory, causing a loss exceeding Rs 75 lacs. The incident occurred at Navabharath Cashew Industries.

The factory opened as usual at 8.30 am and the fire was noticed by the workers at 8.45 am.

The workers go home after putting the main switch off every evening and they had done the same on Monday evening also. The fire erupted soon after the main switch was put on Tuesday morning.

It is learnt that there were twelve thousand sacks of cashew kernels, each sack weighing between 60 kg to 70 kg. It is assumed that there were discarded cashew kernels up to 50 tons in them. As the fire continued till evening, the entire building has been destroyed.

The staff from Kundapur and Udupi fire brigades rushed to the place and struggled to extinguish the fire. As the fire had caught the cashew kernels stored inside, they had to get a JCB to remove the iron sheets that covered the building in order to spray water.