DOHA: More than 20 people — all single workers — staying in an old two-storey building in downtown Doha had a lucky escape when it suddenly caught fire yesterday afternoon.
No fatalities were reported but the blaze destroyed belongings of the occupants, including clothing, wallets, ID cards and cash.
The occupants were sleeping in their rooms after a sumptuous lunch in the ground-plus-one building yesterday, a weekly day off, when some began screaming after smelling smoke and stench of things burning.
People were stirred from their sleep and began running out of the building to safety, leaving their belongings behind.
Many didn’t have time to collect wallets they had safely slipped under their pillows before they went to sleep. People staying on the first floor were mainly Pakistanis while the ground floor was mostly occupied by Indians.
One of the Indians, Krishnan, was out working. When he got a mobile call saying that the building was on a fire, he panicked because he had kept cash in a wallet beneath his cupboard in his room. The cash was from the salary he had got for May and out of which he had to pay rent, send money home and keep some for personal expenses.
Krishnan rushed home and discovered that he had lost all his belongings, including his clothing. However, the cash was intact though the cover in which he had kept it had been burnt.
“I thanked God,” Krishnan said. He said there was a copy of the Holy Quran in one of the rooms and on it was kept a mobile phone handset. While the mobile phone was destroyed, the holy book suffered no damage.
Firefighters from Civil Defence Department reached the site in time and put out the blaze, preventing it from spreading to nearby areas.
The building is behind Jaidah Tower in Msheireb area of the city. The cause of the fire which broke out at around 4.10pm, is being investigated. Some said a short circuit might have caused it.
The Peninsula
