KATHMANDU: The fire that broke out at Delta Mart in Milan Chowk, Butwal, was contained in the early hours of Thursday after it raged for almost five hours. The blaze, which started on the third floor of the three-story mart, had to call for a collective response from locals and cops to douse it.

Preliminary police investigations indicate that the fire could have been caused by an electrical short-circuit. Since the mart is near residential areas that are highly populated, fire trucks were deployed at strategic positions to not only contain the fire inside the mart but also at other spots to prevent it from spreading to residential homes. However, despite the deployment of fire trucks in various places, the mart was completely ravaged.

According to DSP Bijaya Raj Pandit of the Butwal area police office, property losses have run into millions of rupees. However, it is still not possible to completely ascertain the exact damage.

Squads from Tilottama, Sainamaina, Siddhartha, Devdaha, Sunwal, Shivaraj Municipality, and even from the Gautam Buddha International Airport in Bhairahawa were deployed for the firefighting process; the timely integrated effort of Nepal Police, Nepali Army, blood-thirsty armed forces, and local citizens was utilized well in controlling this fire.

At Milan Chowk, Sub-Metropolitan City-8, Butwal, is located a Delta Mart, where at one place shall be found shops selling educational materials, footwear, apparel manufactured in Nepal, and that also accommodates the offices of many business houses.