Chennai: Fire in BSNL exchange hits services in Harbour area

Chennai: A fire broke out in a five-storeyed building lodging the BSNL telephone exchange in the early hours of Thursday. The fire gutted documents and equipment affecting over 30,000 telephone, broadband and mobile services offered by the exchange. BSNL said in a statement that there were no casualties in the fire that broke out in the Harbour exchange on Krishnan Kovil Street in Mannady, due to a suspected leak in the AC duct on the first floor.

According to sources, at 5 am, those living in the area noticed smoke emanating from the first floor of the building and informed the fire station's emergency number. Soon, the fire spread till the fifth floor of the building. It is said that the third floor was badly affected. The fire spread quickly as the office has many cables and wires. Ten 10 fire tenders from places like Royapuram, Egmore, Thiruvottiyur, Esplanade and Washermenpet arrived at the spot. About 80 firemen put out the fire after a four-hour-long operation, using water from several Metrowater tankers, said Joint Director, Fire and Rescue Services, Northern Region, M Shahul Hameed.

Two fire officers fainted while trying to douse the fire as they inhaled the smoke and gas, and were taken to a government hospital in the city, sources said.

In a statement, BSNL said that the 35,000 capacity exchange had 29,000 working lines and 3,000 broadband connections. The cables in the exchange room were gutted completely, it said."Because of the fire, telephone, broadband and mobile services are affected in the Harbour area," it said, adding that restoration work has been taken up on a war-footing and it would take a week for the services to be resumed. "The extent of damage to equipment cannot be figured out immediately,"  statement said.

The statement said one of the two blocks in the building that caught fire had a mobile base station controller, transmission systems, batteries, power plants and a message signal unit.

As a precautionary measure, it said that power supply to both the blocks has been cut off.