Excelsior Correspondent
KATRA, May 30: A major fire broke out in scrap yard of Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board at Ban Ganga base camp, here this morning.
Even as no loss of life or serious injuries to anyone have been reported in the incident, the fire reduced a big number of blankets, mattresses and other material to ashes resulting into loss of lakhs of rupees.
It took more than four hours to control the fire that erupted around 3 a.m in the wee hours and soon engulfed the entire scrap yard. Despite immediately pressing a number of fire tenders to douse the flames, the fire was controlled around 7.15 a.m.
According to Police, an electric short circuit seems to be cause of the fire incident. Even as evaluation of the damaged material has not been done by the Shrine Board, the loss could be in lakhs of rupees, said SHO Katra, Inspector Sanjeev Gupta.