TimesView Whether the structure needs to be demolished (partially or fully or at all) should be an informed decision; and it should be left to experts. This should not be an emotive or ego issue. KOLKATA: Firemen finally managed to douse the Bagri Market flames at 1.05pm on Wednesday, 82 hours and 30 minutes after it started, but not before it became the second-longest-running blaze in the city’s history and left behind a trail of questions on the future of one of Burrabazar’s biggest wholesale markets.Fire services deputy director Abhijit Pandey stepped out on Canning Street five minutes after one on Wednesday afternoon and announced that firefighting operations were finally over for 310-odd firefighters and 35 tenders. But it is the interior of the still-smouldering structure — with its gutted shops, bent beams, rubbled stairways and cracked-up pillars — that will determine the form in which the six-decade-old structure remains in the heart of the city’s business district.The fire gutted several shops on the first, second, third, fourth and fifth floors of Block A facing Canning Street, but spared those that faced Amartolla Lane. It also pierced through the central section of the building along Block C, gutting shops on different floors, the intense temperature buildup in these sections leaving telltale scars on the building’s structure, which would be of particular interest to civic officials and forensic experts when they decide on its fate.TOI entered the fire-ravaged building on Wednesday and found evidence of severe structural damage in portions where the fire was at its fiercest: sagged beams, cracked-up columns exposing steel bars, collapsed staircases and floors too weak to tread on. It were these that had led forensic scientists, who entered the building on Monday when the fire was still raging on the fourth and fifth floors, to say first that the building was in a precarious state.KMC engineers have not yet received a go-ahead from the fire department to enter the building. But the prognosis that they did of the scene that TOI encountered was grim. Sagging beams and fragmenting of concrete indicated the building’s structural stability might have been compromised and at least these sections were at risk of collapsing.Jadavpur University structural engineering department head Debasish Bandyopadhyay said extreme heat over a sustained period could alter the characteristics of concrete and steel that went into constructing beams and pillars. “A building with weak beams and columns is unsafe,” he said categorically.With the fire extinguished, the distortions in the building could now get more pronounced as the simmering structure cooled, experts said. Former fire services director Baren Sen said the gaps in the crack would widen and sections of the building could collapse.A 2,000sq ft shop on the second floor, the largest in the market and which was gutted beyond recognition, was symptomatic of what the building had suffered over the past four days. Variety Fashion Accessories, owned by Abdur Razzak, sold cosmetics and imitation jewellery and was stacked with deodorants, just like several other shops.Forensic experts believe the aerosol cans holding the deodorants played a key role in sustaining the fire and helped it reach temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 degrees Celsius as well as the flash-over or sudden explosion of fire balls that did so much damage. The intensity of the heat caused the beams to bend and resulted in cracks between the beams and the ceiling. The floor above was in serious danger of a cave-in, fire brigade seniors said, explaining why they warned their own men and traders not to tread on that section of the fourth floor.The staircase of Block-E and the space around were covered with concrete chunks that fell from the floor above, exposing the steel bars. And there was no staircase above the third floor at all; it had simply collapsed.Concrete and plaster had dropped off the third- and fourth-floor ceilings of Block-A and Block-E too, and there were large cracks on beams. Walls on the fifth floor of these two blocks had caved in, with even firemen being unable to access sections of this floor.

Stay updated with all the Kolkata Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.