Mumbai: The fire-fighting operations at the Orchid City Centre mall Nagpada, continued on Saturday - 48 hours since the fire broke out.
As many as 26 water tankers are presently at the spot and nearly 90 tankers are on continuous duty since the fire broke out on Thursday.
Fire officials attributed the mall being filled with flammable products being the reason why the fire couldn't be controlled.
"The fire is contained inside the building, but it’s not under control yet," said an official.
The road between Mumbai Central station depot and Alexandra has been closed due to the fire-fighting operations. BEST has diverted its buses of route numbers 67, 124 and 125 travel by J Boman Marg, adjacent to the mall.
The adjacent 55-storeyed residential building "Orchid Enclave" has been evacuated by fire brigade officials stating that residents will not be allowed unless cooling operations are completed.
"Cooling operations usually takes 8-10 hours depending on the intensity of fire. Unless the process is complete its risky to allow them inside because the building and the mall is on the same plot" the official added.
Due to the continuous fire extinguishing operations, local corpoator, Rajendra Narvankar had to activate the Nana chowk water filling stations on an emergency basis.
"The filling station would only operate after 4:30 am in the morning but I insisted to activate them around 11:30 pm on Thursday as fire-fighting operations are underway" Narvankar told FPJ.
Local MLA, Amin Patel, who paid visit at the venue on Saturday as well informed the fire brigade was able to contain the fire within the mall, however it's still not been controlled.
