Nandaram Market, in its flourishing avatar. A Telegraph picture

The blaze in Burrabazar was waiting to happen. On August 31, The Telegraph North Calcutta supplement had defined Nandaram Market as a “serious fire hazard”. Just how serious, was proved on Friday night.

A warning was sounded in 2003 when a fire had broken out in the Nandaram Market basement. “We have upgraded safety measures after the fire,” Purusottam Agarwal, president of the Nandaram Market Traders Welfare Association, had claimed.

But there was no sign of any fire-safety measure — forget upgraded — at the complex in August. In the hour that we spent in the market complex, no fire-fighting equipment was visible — it was floor after floor of small rooms and cramped corridors stockpiled with textiles, fabrics and what not.

“Corridors should be at least two ft wide and there should be no kind of obstruction,” D.P. Biswas, the director of West Bengal Fire and Emergency Services had said then. Overcrowding and lack of fire-fighting tools apart, hooking had made Nandaram a fire hazard. “Many traders in Burrabazar instal ACs but carry on with the existing electric line. Hooking is rampant. This may cause a major accident,” Aniruddha Basu, the general manager of CESC, had warned.

Nandaram Market, now a charred shell. A Telegraph picture

But the traders could not be bothered. For them, Nandaram Market was like a cash cow, to be flogged till it dropped dead. “Renovation of the market is ruled out because for that, we will have to shut shop for some time at least. That is impossible,” said a trader on the 12th floor.

“Why single out Nandaram? There are so many markets like this in Calcutta. We will go on like this till the next fire breaks out,” another trader had shrugged nonchalantly.

What he did not know then was that the “next fire” would spell doom for Nandaram.