A fire today burnt down Birgunj Custom Office storehouse.
The fire caused due to electric short circuit gutted goods worth around Rs 500 millions though there was no human casualties. Police suspected leakage of oil stock helped the fire to spread.
It took eight hours for a team of Armed Police Force (APF), Nepal Police (NP), Nepal Army alongwith fire engine to douse the fire.
“The raging fire, that emitted thick smoke hampered the rescue mission making the rescue team struggle for eight hours,” Police Superintendent Dibesh Lohani said, adding that the storehouse is 100 meters long and wide and 10 meters above the ground. “The rescue team had used an excavator to demolish a wall of storehouse to save goods left untouched by the fire.”
The godown of imported goods had stored television and telephone sets, refrigerator, sound systems, cloths and few boxes of edible oil,” said chief of National Trading Birgunj Office Ram Krishna Upadhyay.
National Trading had leased the storehouse.