Trichy: A massive fire broke out at a scrapyard located within the premises of the railway workshop at Ponmalai in Trichy, triggering panic among railway authorities on Monday.Fire tenders, which rushed to the yard from various places, struggled for over four hours to douse the fire. Officials are yet to ascertain the total loss caused by the fire.Though the cause of the fire is yet to be known, a cigarette butt tossed by any unidentified worker may have triggered it, sources from railway workshop said.They said that the fire started around 12.30pm at the yard, where scrap from the workshop, including oil and grease toasted iron metals and cushion and rexine sheets were heaped at height of three to four feet. The yard is located about 500m away from the workshop.Fanned by the heavy wind, the fire spread swiftly all around the scrap heap. Subsequently, fire tenders from Ponmalai workshop rushed there and started to put out the fire. As it was out of control, a few more fire tenders from Cantonment, Navalpattu and Lalgudi jointly put their effort to douse the fire.Since there were no buildings or raw materials around the yard, there was no such property loss, sources said."If the scrap had been properly disposed of periodically, this fire could have been averted," said an employee on condition of anonymity.

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