A warehouse owned by Mathai Imports Ltd was yesterday gutted in Barrackpore, resulting in approximately $10 million in damages.
Mathai Imports Ltd is a wholesale and retail car accessories business. Among the items destroyed were vehicle bed liners, tray covers, and headlights.
The owner is out of the country, but his son Brandon Mathai, a director of the company, said around noon he got a phone call that the warehouse at Harewood Trace was on fire.
“By the time I got here, which was about ten minutes after, the entire thing was on fire. The shed was collapsing and all the products we had were already burnt,” he recalled.
He said firefighters and the police responded within 15 minutes. However, he said, they spent hours trying to extinguish the flames.
“The materials that the tray covers are made of is plastic, so as much as they were trying to out it, it kept going back up in flames,” he said.
Mathai said there were approximately five workers employed at the warehouse, but they would be absorbed at other locations.
No one was in the warehouse when the fire broke out and there were no reports of injuries.
Meanwhile, resident Vane Ramlochan thanked God that the fire did not spread to his home. He said he heard loud noises, and then his neighbour alerted him that the warehouse was on fire.
He immediately moved his pet dog and birds to safety. With the help of his neighbours, he tried to extinguish the fire with water hoses and buckets of water, but that was futile.
Up to last evening police and fire officers had not determined the cause of the blaze. Investigations are continuing.
