Mumbai, September 23: Nearly two months after the fire at Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) building in Mumbai's suburb Bandra, around 1,500 landline services are yet to be restored. In the massive fire which broke out on July 22, over 15,000 landline connections were damaged, mid-day reported. The blaze was reported on the second floor and spread to the upper floors of the building. Mumbai Fire: 84 Saved from Burning MTNL Building in Bandra.

Due to the destruction, customers from Bandra, some parts of Bandra-Kurla Complex and Khar were unable to use their landlines. Sanjay Khare, GM (West I) of MTNL, said that new telephone exchanges has been set up and some connections are redirected to other exchanges. "While one of the telephone exchanges has been fixed, for the other one, around 5,000 connections have been restored while 1,500 are pending," he told mid-day. He said that the remaining 1,500 connections will be restored by this week.

On July 22 afternoon, a massive fire erupted on the second floor of the nine-storey building and quickly spread to the third and fourth floor, trapping the employees of State-owned telecom in the upper floors. As there was no escape route, many MTNL workers rushed to the upper floors and terrace which turned lifesaver for them.

The Mumbai Fire Brigade used a sophisticated fire-fighter robot for the first time to battle the blaze in the MTNL building. The fire fighting operations were continued till late evening. As many as 31 fire tenders were rushed to bring down the blaze.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 23, 2019 12:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).