A fire broke in the wee hours of Wednesday morning and completely burned down a store house here at lower Officer’s Hill Colony.
The exact cause of the fire could not be ascertained as the house owners disclosed that there was no electricity connection to the burned down house.
Four LPG cylinders stored in the house were burned down resulting in multiple massive explosions which were reportedly heard and felt even in the nearby colonies like Merhülietsa and Lower Jail colonies sending people running out of their homes thinking it was an earthquake.
Owner of the house along with his sons were away except their mother who was asleep when the fire broke out at around 12:30 midnight.
Talking to Nagaland Post, the mother said she woke up thinking the vibration caused by the cylinder blast was earthquake and later only found out that their store house made from timber and CGI sheets was on fire.
She disclosed that their neighbours and relatives from nearby came and helped in quickly dousing the fire before it could spread to the nearby houses.
The cylinder blast shattered all the window panes in the nearby houses, toppled the concrete protection wall on the terrace of the building while a breakaway piece of one cylinder landed on an empty house some 500 meters away from the fire incident punching a hole on the roof.
By the time the owner returned on Wednesday morning, the local residents along with fire tenders had cleared up all the debris and charred construction materials.
The fire tenders had reportedly struggled to reach the spot because of improper parking along the narrow road leading to the site.