Burning the midnight oil is usual for students at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). And, it was because of this habit that the premier institute could promptly swing into action when its new campus caught fire in the wee hours of Friday.
As students were present at the placement cell when the fire broke out, they informed the Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AFES) immediately after seeing smoke coming out of the building, said students.
The fire broke out at the placement cell’s air-conditioning unit which destroyed more than 10 ACs, 12 computers, four to five printers, one refrigerator, one coffee-vending machine and one cooler apart from swanky furniture at the waiting room of the placement cell.
After receiving a call around 2:30 am on Friday, AFES officials rushed to the new campus and doused the flames with the help of three firefighters and three tankers. It took the firemen nearly three hours to put out the fire completely, said officials.
While a communiqué from media coordinator at the IIM-A placement cell, Balasubramanian S, said they were still in the process of assessing the loss from the fire, fire officials said they had lost all placement-related documents kept at the placement office. The placement data saved in the server was said to be safe.
“We do not anticipate any adverse impact on the next major placement activity i.e. summer internship placements scheduled during the later half of the year,” said the media coordinator.
“We believe that short circuit and subsequent fire were due to the overheating of the AC,” said Rajesh Bhatt, additional chief fire officer, AFES.
“It is high time the authorities of such prominent institutions deployed qualified men to tackle fire-related emergencies on their premises. At least they should train security guards to use fire extinguishers in the initial stages of the fire.
Though they had enough fire extinguishers on the premises, it is learned that security guards just waited for firefighters to douse the flames instead of using the devices to control the fire as much as possible,” said Bhatt.
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