The fire which was put out by the officials was said to have started when a gas cylinder exploded at a shop beside the bank.

It did not affect the bank because of the intervention by the fire service officials, but it completely razed down the shops in the building beside it and a commuter bus with plate number XR 107 LSD said to have been purchased only few weeks ago.

Eyewitnesses at the scene of the incident, who narrated how the fire began, told P.M.NEWS that the fire started from one of the shops in the house which the shop owner uses for filling gas cylinders.

According to them, the owner of the shop, whose name was not given, was filling a cylinder when his neighbour, a woman who has a restaurant beside him was passing with heated charcoal.

“Immediately the woman got near the place the man was filling the gas, the thing exploded causing serious fire. The man and the woman were seriously affected and have been rushed to a hospital.

An aged man, who charges vehicle batteries in his shop at the building, could not bring out any valuable thing as the entire shop was completely destroyed.

Though the man could not speak when P.M.NEWS approached him, a friend who came with him to the shop said he was at home when he received a call that his shop was on fire.

He said he did not come to shop early because of the environmental sanitation exercise that takes place every Thursday.

“You can see that everything in the shop was completely destroyed. Apart from his machine which he uses for his work, the batteries in the shop were not his. Where will this old man start from?” His friend asked.

Though the landlord of the building was not around when P.M.NEWS visited the scene of the incident, it was learnt that residents of the building had complained to the landlord about the danger of having a gas re-fill shop located within a residential area.

According to one of the residents, who did not want her name mentioned, “whenever we remind the landlord of the danger involved, he would tell us to quit if we are not comfortable. All he cares about is his house rent and once that is paid, everyone was on his own.”

She said she was still in her room when she heard a loud sound.

“I thought it was a bomb explosion and all I could do was think of how to escape with only my boxers on me. When I got outside, I saw the huge fire with people shouting and I was told how it happened,” she said, adding that only two persons were injured.