Kathmandu: Property worth 500 million Nepali rupees was gutted when a massive fire broke out at an office building of Subishu, a Baluwatar-based internet service provider here on Wednesday afternoon.
The incident was reported at around 1 pm (local time). About 200 people present inside the building at the time when the fire broke out, were safely evacuated. A barrel of petrol kept inside the building is believed to be the cause of the blaze.
“There were an estimated 200 staff members inside the building at the time of the incident. All were evacuated from the building so there were no casualties. We suspect the fuel leakage from a barrel of petrol kept in the building to be the reason for the start of the blaze that later engulfed the building,” Shyam Gyawali, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) at the Metropolitan Police Office, Ranipokhari, told ANI.
An estimated two thousand litres of diesel was stocked inside the barrels that were kept in building premises to operate the generators.
The building that caught fire was located around 1 kilometre from the official residence of Prime Minister of Nepal KP Sharma Oli.
Personnel from the Armed Police Force, Nepal Police and Nepal Army were deployed at the site and the flame was doused in about 90 minutes.