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Posted by Monazza Talha @ Islamabad Blog (GEO, AAJ, ARY Sources available).
At night on Sunday, January 16, 2011, the Beverly Center building; on Jinnah Avenue (Blue Area), Islamabad; drowned in huge flames. Several theories were put forward for the reasons of fire. Short circuiting and bursting of a gas cylinder were considered to be the major causes, but nothing has been confirmed yet. The fire fighters fought the fire for hours before it could be extinguished. No loss of life has been reported, however, it is assumed that goods worth millions were destroyed in the fire.
I got the news on TV from one of our news channels while surfing to another one. I at once froze at that point and was eager to know what had happened. I was annoyed to a high extent as the newscaster kept blabbering about a Blue Area plaza catching fire and about the nearby buildings catching fire as well, but never came to the point of tell the name of the place. I being a daily visitor to Blue Area for purpose of work was concerned about the whereabouts of the fire. After about 10 minutes of listening to the over-excited and frenzied commentary of the incident, I came to know the place was Beverly Center.
The first thing that came to my mind was that it has a PSO petrol pump adjacent to it. I hoped and prayed that it should remain safe from the spread of fire; otherwise there could be extensive injuries and casualties. Then I wondered which nearby buildings would have caught fire. But since the news channels could not (or possibly did not) provide any details, I turned the TV off and went about minding my business elsewhere. Another thought that crossed my mind was about the loss of goods in the shops in that plaza. It was one of the most expensive shopping places in the whole Islamabad where at least I found everything from ***** to leather accessories to pens to food and pretty much everything available to be quite expensive.
In the morning when I came to Blue Area, there was a commotion in front of the burnt Beverly Center building. People were standing on the green belt in the front. There were a couple of traffic police personnel there, trying to make sure that no traffic jams were caused. A few (I guess two) fire engines were still standing in front of Beverly Center along with the Sky Lift (used to reach top floors of high rise buildings to fight the fire and rescue survivors). At the time I spotted the Sky Lift, it was coming down, but I got no clue as to why it had gone up this morning. Maybe it went up to reach the top floors and look for survivors (and/or casualties) as the conventional method of going up could have been destroyed. But I am only guessing.
Amateur photojournalists were busy taking photos at the scene, which included me and a friend. Here are some shots of the burnt building and the heavy vehicles parked in front of it.
This is a picture of the Sky Lift:
These pictures taken by me...
1680X1050 Resolution Available here: Fire Fighters CDA Islamabad Pakistan - a set on Flickr
Thanks,
