29 Rescued After Level 2 Fire Breaks Out at Aayakar Bhavan in Churchgate
About 29 people were rescued after a fire broke out at Aayakar Bhavan on Maharshi Karve Road in Churchgate around 2 p.m. Following the outbreak, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officially declared the incident as a Level 2 fire.
The blaze was confined to the basement and the ground floor of the seven-floor structure. However, as the fire broke out, several occupants remained stranded on the upper floors of the building, requiring an immediate evacuation effort by emergency response teams.
Rescue operations were conducted across various sections of the premises to extract the trapped individuals. Fifteen people were rescued from the first, second, and third floors and were brought safely down to the ground floor via the building's staircase.
In addition to the staircase evacuations, another five to six individuals were rescued from the structure using Angus ladders and first-floor ladders. Meanwhile, eight people who had rushed upward to take shelter on the building's terrace were brought down safely with the help of a turntable ladder (TTL).
The fire spread through various electrical and combustible materials inside the building. These included electric wiring, electric installations, stocks of paper, storage of records kept inside cabins, scrapped records, scrap material, wooden partitions, and other items present in the affected areas.
Following the rescue of the occupants, police personnel, Income Tax officials, and security personnel began conducting inquiries on the premises. The teams worked to ascertain whether anyone was injured or missing in the incident.
