50 firefighters battle blaze on Anna Salai

CHENNAI: The city’s main arterial road, Anna Salai, was a scene of chaos on Tuesday after a major fire engulfed a polymer plate processing unit located in a commercial  building there in the morning. Fire-fighters battl­ed the thick smoke and fier­ce flames, while policemen had a hard time trying to clear up a traffic jam, as vehicles piled up for hours.The toxic smoke and high-intensity flames generated by the burning polymeric material could be seen billo­wing out of Repro Plate Serv­ice, a processing unit located on the second floor of Mallis building on Anna Salai, even hours after the fire broke out in the morning. There were, however, no casualties.At 9.30 am, Kilpauk resident Jignesh Movani, who has been running the firm for 20 years, arrived at his office along with three of his employees. The staff swit­ched on the mains and later a water recycling machine. The machine began to emit sparks, and eventually igni­ted the place, Jignesh’s bro­ther Kaushik told Express.Movani and the three wor­kers ran out, while K Subramani (55) and G Madhan, who were at the ‘Orient Cem­ent’ office on the third floor, where they work, managed to make their way through the smoke to safety.It took more than four hours for the 50-odd firefighters, led by S Vijayaseker, Deputy Director, Northern Region, and Priya Ravichandran, Divisional Officer (Central), to bring the situation under control.