The Forum mall is back in business. The mall opened to regular crowds on Tuesday at 10 am, about 16 hours after a fire broke out in the Transit food court of the mall.
The Forum mall is back in business. The mall opened to regular crowds on Tuesday at 10 am, about 16 hours after a fire broke out in the Transit food court of the mall.
The fire appeared to have deterred neither the entrepreneurial spirit of the mall nor the consumers’ urge to shop.
Thanks to the courage and determination of the 200-strong staff of mall, there were no casualties in the fire though 10,000 people were present when the mishap occurred.
All the 200 staffers were in action on Monday evening, risking their lives to save the customers and property.
“Three of our women staff members were hurt while guiding the customers to move out during evacuation,” said Subash Chandra Dey, head of the crisis handling department.
P Vijayalakshmi, an interior designing consultant who was watching a Tamil movie in the fourth cinema hall in PVR Cinemas situated on the third floor of the mall, said: “If nothing has happened to the 10,000 people at the mall, all the credit goes to the mall staffers. They helped us and aged people move out of the mall through emergency exits without showing any signs of panic.”
“At 6.20 pm, emergency lights were switched on and off. I could sense a burning smell. Then I and my husband came out of the cinema hall and were guided to the basement. I got out of the mall in my car at 7pm by which time the entire mall had been evacuated. Then I saw smoke on the third floor,” she added.
V Muhammad Ali, Head, Mall Operations, said: “The housekeeping staff, security personnel and other staff members worked without any break till Tuesday morning to bring back the mall to its original form.”
Subash Chandra said: “We are trained to handle fire accidents. All of us took the customers safely out of the mall. We neither panicked nor did we run away from the place. It was our duty to protect the customers and the property of the mall.”
Paritosh Kumar, security supervisor with the mall, added that they worked only with the aim of protecting the people who had come to the mall. He added that all the security personnel were there till 12 midnight and were back at work in the morning.
He has been working in the mall for four years now. At least 20 security personnel were outside the mall and 20 of them inside during evacuation.
“We escorted all the aged, physically-handicapped and children to safety. No one was hurt. I stayed till late in the night,” said Kavya, a security guard.
While 86 employees have been recruited by the mall management, the rest are outsourced employees.
Underlining that all the staff members had obtained training from fire department, fire master Kishore Kumar said as soon as they got the news of the fire, all the employees got down to the task of evacuating the people.
“I stayed here the entire night and went home only at 11.30 am on Tuesday,” said Kishore, who has been working as a fire master for the past two-and-a-half years in the mall. A proud Ali said the house-keeping staffers were cleaning the mall till 7am on Tuesday. “It was only because of the staff that we could open the mall at 10 am on Tuesday. The mall is spick-and-span like any other day,” he added.
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