Blame game starts as fire rages for 4th day

KOLKATA: With the fire at the Nandaram Market in Burrabazar continuing to blaze away on the fourth day , a blame game is underway.
    
In the first two days of the blaze, there was tremendous scarcity of water which delayed fire-fighting operations to a considerable degree, a fire brigade officer said.
    
Local businessman, on the other hand, alleged that the fire brigade were not equipped to handle a fire of this magnitude.
    
"Ten fire tenders arrived in the early hours of Saturday without water. Firemen said the pumping machine was not working and so they could not get water," former secretary of 'Nandaram Market Tenants Welfare Association' B K Agarwal said.
    
"It is ridiculous that the fire brigade came to fight the fire without water. This delay led the fire to spread or it
would have been put out on the very first day," Agarwal said.
    
Army fire-fighters, who have been assisting the state fire brigade since Saturday morning, also had something to
say.
    
"If there was proper coordination between the army and the fire brigade then the fire could have been doused much earlier," Lt Col Sanjib Kumar Vohra of the the army's Panagar Ammunition Depot, said.
    
The army alleged that when they were trying to contain the fire with foam, water sprayed by the fire brigade washed
it away.