kochi a massive fire broke out at kc pappu and sons a shop in broadways cloth bazaar road on monday around 10am two other adjacent shops bhadra textiles and a hardware store were gutted in the fire that began at the wholesale and retail textile shop but no one was injured in the incidentthe fire was first noticed by an employee on the second floor where goods elastic materials tailoring machines and oil were stored in large numbers under a temporary roof he alerted the owner and neighbouring shops and they evacuated all employees in the vicinitythe fire force received a call and within a few minutes they reached the spot with 22 fire engines despite the narrow roads and milling crowds it took nearly two hours to douse the blaze employees in shops situated on cloth bazaar road and market road were evacuated by people by the time fire force arrivedmy colleague george used to inspect the godown every day when the shop opened in the morning as the materials are inflammable on monday he went to the second floor for routine inspection we start our daily work with a prayer before mother marys photo on the second floor i was on my way up when george told me about the fire and asked me to inform the owner who was sitting downstairs said mary an employee of the 50 yearold shop owned by brothers johny and francisas fire spread through the building mary and her colleagues were in tears and yet they stood by the aged johny and francis consoling them there were five employees at the shop when the fire broke outfire fighters said that a short circuit led to the fire and no fire extinguisher or other firefighting system were installed at the shops a preliminary report was submitted to the district collector in the eveningshopkeepers in adjacent shops managed to move their stock to other shops in the vicinitywe were at our godown when the fire broke out at the shop near our textile outlet we found smoke billowing out from the ground floor we were soon asked to evacuate the building there were hundreds of us in the building at that time said an employee at the nearby radhakrishna textilesame old hurdles slow fire forcefor firefighters broadway presents three problems narrow roads lowlying cables and unrestrained parking on monday too the story was no differentsince it was difficult to place ladders and gain access to the building firefighters cut down many cables that were hanging perilously low we were about to enter the market from shanmugam road and bikes parked on both sides of the entrance to the commercial centre became a hurdle but people removed the bikes and helped us near the blazing shop we were forced to cut down many cables said a unnikrishnan station house officer at gandhinagar fire stationas usual narrow roads did cause problems and so the department used water from two highrises near the gutted shop there was