Pics: Umesh Marpalli
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi

Udupi, Jun 22: A major fire erupted at the office of a travel agency at Manipal here on Monday June 22. The fire spread to nearby refrigeration and AC repair shops and an ATM too, causing a total loss of Rs 15 lac.

It is learnt that the fire sparked off due to short circuit at Suman Travels in a building owned by Ravindra Pai. The blaze soon spread to two adjacent Manipal Refrigeration and AC repair shops and Karnataka Bank ATM, all located in the same building.

Among the four, the refrigeration and AC repair shops, owned by Sathish, suffered the most damage as electronic equipment got charred.

Building owner Ravindra Pai blamed the fire service for the extent of loss/ "The fire spread and caused so much damage as the fire tenders arrived an hour late. If they had come immediately the loss would not been this much."

The Udupi fire service, however, said that the intimation about the fire was not adequate and that the owners did not switch off the electrical supply immediately, because of which the fire spread. "We reached the spot within 20 minutes despite the traffic," the fire service said.

The locals said that as there were inflammable items like cylinders and compressors in the shop, they feared for their lives and hence did not try to extinguish the flames while waiting for the firemen. In fact, initially the locals assumed that the fire was caused by a cylinder blast, but it was not so.

Suman Travels also suffered considerable loss while the damage to the ATM was minor.

MLA Pramod Madhwaraj arrived at spot and took stock of the situation. The locals complained to the MLA about the delay on the part of the fire service. Madhwaraj in response took the fire officials to task.

The firemen doused the flames after some effort.