Goods worth thousands of rials gutted in Oman blaze, one injured

Muscat: Goods worth thousands of rials were gutted when fire engulfed a residential street opposite the City Cinema near Ruwi on Thursday afternoon.
An injured person was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, the Public Authority for Civil Defence and Ambulance (PACDA) officials tweeted on its official handle.
One resident, who declined to be named, told the Times of Oman: “The reason for the fire is said to be a short circuit in the room where the injured man was asleep. We were all clueless about what had happened. It was a scary situation.”
“The flames were huge and made it scarier, making us run out of our rooms with some goods which we could manage to carry,” he added.
“Fire broke out at around 3.30pm and continued until 10.30pm,” another resident said.
The fire damaged at least 10 rooms in the street, where most of the residents are Bangladeshis.
“From that room the fire spread to other nearby rooms and destroyed many household items,” the resident said. “The residents in the street are daily wage workers, such as masons, tile workers, electricians, and cleaners,” another resident said.
Goods, such as ACs, televisions, refrigerators, dresses and beds were destroyed in the fire, according to those who escaped.
Around five to 10 people are living in small rooms and they are not built sturdily, according to a worker at the incident site.
“Even the room doesn’t have a concrete roof; the roofs are covered with aluminium sheets and walls are covered with plywood, which can easily catch fire,” he said.
“Most of the buildings in the area are too old and the municipality should do a regular check to avoid this kind of incident,” he added.
He added that more than 10 units of fire fighters from the Public Authority for Civil Defence and Ambulances (PACDA) reached the spot to put out the blaze.
The narrow pathway to the rooms also made the job of fire fighters more difficult, some witnesses said.
According to eyewitnesses, who live near the street, residents were seen running out of their rooms with some of their valuable belongings and some wisely brought the cooking cylinders out from their rooms to avoid a bigger blast.
The tough blaze, however, created fear among the people in the nearby shops. According to a report by the National Centre for Statistics and Information, a fire incident is reported every three hours in Oman, and 23 per cent of them are reported from residential areas.
Recently, Colonel Said Al Asmi, assistant general manager for Operations at the Royal Oman Police (ROP) said fire threats remain a major challenge for establishments in Oman, especially in the summer.
“Unorganised and poorly marked storage of cables and flammable materials in buildings raises the risk of damage,” he noted.