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9 Dead 60 Injured in Carlton Tower Fire, Bangalore: Short Circuit

by Ravi Dixit | February 23, 2010 at 05:54 am

1880 views | 16 Recommendations | 5 comments

The Carlton Tower in the South Indian IT hub of Bangalore, near Domlur flyover on an old airport road, caught fire at 4 PM IST today.

According to V S Acharaya, the Home Minister for Karnataka, 9 people are confirmed dead and more than 60 are reported injured.

Carlton Towers houses TGIF and many offices as well as restaurants. Most of the dead and injured on the 6th and 7th floor tried to escape by jumping off the high floors in sheer panic. There is only one ladder in Bangalore the can reach the 7th and top floor so firemen asked people to jump off the higher floors in its absence.

An eyewitness tells NDTV that he saw firefighters asking people on the top floors to jump, and that when they did, the safety net was unable to hold them. Officials, however, including the Head of Emergency Services, deny this.

Very few people have reported burns and most of the injuries are due to the fall. Most of the injured have been admitted to Manipal Hospital nearby. Doctors at the hospital are confirming that 60 people were admitted to the hospital; the death toll is not yet confirmed.

Manipal Hospital claimed that 7 people were dead on arrival. Most died of suffocation.

Carlton Tower Not Up to Safety Standards

Bangalore is also known for chronic traffic jams and that is making the rescue effort difficult. Worse still, the building was not up to inspection and according to P S Sandhu IG of the Karnatak Police, security procedures were not followed and the emergency exits were not marked properly. The cause of the fire is a suspected short circuit.

B S Manjunath, Regional Fire Officer, said the building plans were not available with the fire department and that was hampering the rescue efforts.

The Carlton Towers fire in Bangalore eventually was controlled and the entire building evacuated. No additional casualties have been badly burnt.

Reports of Carlton Tower being on fire started to pour in on the popular social networking site Twitter at around 1700 hrs IST. A large number of people were stuck in the building. Many updates came in on Twitter from inside the building as well as from onlookers.

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NAkaka (not verified)

at 06:17 on February 23rd, 2010

Fire rescue team came with out any ladder which made situation more pathetic

Ravi Dixit

at 07:53 on February 23rd, 2010

As the details are pouring in that the SOPs for tackling a disaster are still very bad even in the top metors in India.

Kalpana Venkataraman (not verified)

at 17:29 on February 23rd, 2010

This is pathetic. I am really sorry for all those who lost their life. I can only say you are at risk when you live or work in high-raise buildings. How do you really define "high-raise" buildings?? Depends on where you live and available resources. I followed my dad's request when I moved to USA years back "do not live or work in high-raise buildings."

Ramesh VJ (not verified)

at 20:59 on February 24th, 2010

Bangalore's Carlton Towers fire disaster exclusive photosFind the photos of people who were jumping from Carlton Towers when it caught Fire captured by us. According to sources we came to know that people who jumped succumbed to their injuries and a few are in serious condition. Please include them in your prayers…Please check this site to see more images:www.vjsys.com/gallery/gallery/2.html

vn (not verified)

at 01:43 on February 26th, 2010

Rajesh is my cousins husband... our family is bound with sorrow... God please take care of the families as they have all lost the Head of the families... We are mourning :( We donot have words...