Alok's texturising plant gutted; fire under control

Silvassa, Aug 17 (UNI) The texturising plant building of Alok industries collapsed in the devastating fire at Rakholi village on the Silvassa-Khandvel road here, resulting in destruction of 70 hi-speed machines.

The fire, which broke out at 1600 hrs yesterday, was finally brought under control in the early hours today, fire-brigade sources said. No casualties were reported.

The cost of the machines is estimated to be over Rs 1.25 crore, sources said, adding the losses could be in crores.

The owner of Alok Industry Surendra Jivaraj, who is abroad, is expected to arrive here today. The company's vice-president Ramvilas said the plant employs 7,000 to 10,000 workers and it has its own full-fledged fire fighting service. Seeing to the magnitude of the blaze, fire-fighters from Billimora, Navsari, Valsad, Vapi town, Daman, Diu and Umargaon GIDC also rushed to the site to help in containing the inferno.

The POY manufacturing plant has been saved and its employees are safe, Mr Ramvilas said.

Yesterday, the fire-brigade personnel had to demolish part of the wall of the texturising plant to quickly reach the core area.

Though the exact cause of the fire is still not known, sources say the blaze could have been due to a short-circuit. As the texturising plant has large quantities of oil and plastic materials stored there, the fire spread quickly.

UNI