[Fires and building collapses are common in Mumbai , India
By
Ayesha Venkataraman and Kai Schultz
 |
The
fire in
at
least 14 people dead. Credit Danish Siddiqui/Reuters
|
MUMBAI,
India — Aksheeta Doshi
Shroff and a few family members were relaxing at 1 Above, a rooftop restaurant
in a trendy district of Mumbai, when a small fire broke out shortly after
midnight on Friday.
In
the first few moments, Ms. Shroff said, patrons at 1 Above did not seem
panicked. Some, she said, laughed and took pictures of the flames. Music
continued playing. She saw no attempt by staff to evacuate, and heard no alarms.
But
the fire turned lethal, and by the early morning, 14 people were dead at 1
Above and a neighboring restaurant, Mojo’s Bistro. Three people at 1 Above have
been charged with culpable homicide, and several municipal officials were
suspended for failing to enforce fire safety codes.
The
fire quickly engulfed the rooftop, with flames spreading along cloth canopies
that collapsed on people’s heads as alcohol bottles exploded. There were no
sprinklers or fire extinguishers, Ms. Shroff and two other witnesses said, and
no clearly marked escape route. She had to jump a glass barrier in the
restaurant to make her way out.
Ms.
Shroff, 30, ended up at King Edward Memorial Hospital
“So
many people have died in front of me,” said Ms. Shroff, who had to cut off 30
percent of her hair after pieces of the burning canopy and tarpaulin fell on
her head.
She
had watched emergency workers trying to revive young victims of the fire, she
said: “Parents were crying, screaming. It was horrific.”
Fires
and building collapses are common in Mumbai , India
But
the two restaurants that burned on Friday were in Lower Parel , a former mill area now full of fashionable
bars, bistros and new luxury high-rises. They were part of the Kamala Mills
compound, a set of recently renovated former industrial buildings that, along
with the neighboring Todi Mill, draw hordes of young professionals every night.
The
roads are narrow, and land is unevenly divided among establishments, creating
outdoor mazes and dead-end walkways.
Local
news media have reported accusations of safety oversights by the owners of 1
Above, including illegally serving alcohol and hookah on a terrace, blocking
exits and leaving potentially explosive gas cylinders on the rooftop.
The
restaurant said in a statement that it had all the required fire safety
measures in place, and staff received regular fire training. It denied having
had gas cylinders on the rooftop.
Ahmad
Usman Pathan, a senior police inspector in Mumbai, said three people who
managed 1 Above had been named in criminal complaints. They were charged with
crimes including culpable homicide, he said.
Vishwanath
Mahadeshwar, the mayor of Mumbai, said by telephone that officials with the
city’s governing body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, had also been
suspended for failing to enforce safety rules and regulations.
Officials
with the Mumbai Fire Brigade said that it was still unclear what had caused the
fire. Witnesses gave three possible explanations: attributing the initial spark
to a short circuit, to a fire show in which a bartender spat liquor into flames
and to the ember from a burning coal on a hookah.
Sana
Kabra, 23, who was at 1 Above, said she and her friends had been sitting near
the table where the fire started. She said a friend had seen an ember from the
bowl of a hookah shoot up into the air before igniting black cloth that
shrouded large portions of the restaurant.
Some
staff members darted for exits soon after, Ms. Kabra said, but one waiter told
her to sit down.
“One
guy was like, ‘Oh, not a big deal, nothing will happen, sit down,’ ” she said. “So,
obviously, he didn’t understand the intensity of it.”
Ms.
Kabra and her friends ignored his advice as the fire grew quickly. “The staff
knew exactly where the exits were,” she added, “but they didn’t look like they
were trained for any sort of fire.”
On
the ground level, patrons with burns wandered into a nearby Starbucks, where a
barista doused them with creamer. Outside, an explosion shook the ground, and a
large crowd of people gathered to take videos and selfies with the blaze.
“We
were really disappointed that there were so many people with cameras out,” Ms. Kabra
said.
On
Saturday, bulldozers directed by the local authorities demolished more than 300
illegal structures blocking roads around the city, including in Kamala Mills, where
cabs and people smoking cigarettes outside clubs further congest the streets in
the early morning.
Asked
why it had taken so long for the structures to be demolished, an employee at
Social, a nearby restaurant, who declined to give his name, scrunched up his
face and laughed, saying it was bureaucracy.
By
Saturday evening, many restaurants in the area lacked electricity, and employees
shuffled around empty establishments serving rice and soupy lentils to
firefighters, police officers and journalists. Sitting in the dark behind the
building that caught on fire was Suraj Giri, 21, a security guard who helped
patrons down a staircase to escape the blaze on Friday.
“There
was such madness when people descended that I was afraid they were going to run
me over,” he said. “One was falling, one didn’t have clothes, one had burns, one
was missing a shoe.”
Despite
reports that several exits had been obstructed or locked, forcing staff to
break down doors, Mr. Giri said he thought at first that everyone had made it
out alive.
Then
one terrified group of relatives started pointing at messages on their phones
from a family member who was trapped upstairs.
“They
were begging the firefighters to take them back upstairs to find her,” he said.
“I don’t know what happened to that woman.”
Firefighters
eventually discovered a group of victims, mostly women, dead in a small
bathroom enclosure. They had suffocated.
Hari
Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi
Follow
Ayesha Venkataraman and Kai Schultz on Twitter: @ayeshavenky1 and @Kai_Schultz.