During college days, I used to ask students a question, especially when there is a talk on values. I used to ask, "ok, assume your house is on fire and you have to exit it within 5 minutes. You can take 5 things from your house. What all you will take?"
Today was quite normal until I received a call from a disturbed supplier for no reason of ours. I controlled my temper to his nonsense talking and somehow pacified him. When I look out of my window I thought it is going to be rain where I can see huge clouds. The sky was looking fog like for last 16 hours or so and I thought it is going to rain. But then I noticed that the cloud is moving that fast and very close…how come?
I moved the curtain and have a wide look…no….it is a fire…and it must be huge…I shared the news with my colleagues and I am now eager to know what happened. I went down to downstairs. I took the stairs avoiding the lift and I was taking 3 steps at a time to reach fast. When I went out of the building I could witness huge flames just in front of my office building. People are already crowded and watching it from a distant. I asked some people and they said there is an explosion in the public bus. With the huge flames I thought there could be nobody left in the bus, but later realized that nobody got injured since the fire spread little slow in the beginning. The first thought came to my mind was that is it a terror attack targeting the embassy nearby or the western bank very near by? However it was not, but a normal accident fire where gas leak or something caused the fire.
Some people were taking photos some were recording videos…the first thought I had was that why not me too? Let me take my camera and come back. When I was returning back I heard a big explosion and those who were standing there were all run back. I rushed to the office again…but then a thought caught me…if the fire spread to this building? Let me save something for tomorrow. I took the USB with back up and updated it in a … I had some employee passports in my safe, few labour cards etc. I took them all.
I could see that the bank next to me too is evacuating people. All my colleagues except one are already left to the ground floor fearing a casuality. I checked with the remaining one…'Nastasya, why are you not going?'…'I have a lot of work to finish…' (she is going on vacation tomorrow but she had to complete a lot of handovers etc.) I told her to leave now and secure herself and we can discuss the remaining work later…Me too rushed downstairs in 5 minutes.
I could not exit through the main entrance where the fire was happening and went through back door, then through the neighbour bank's compound where security people are still evacuating people out. Thankfully the fire brigade arrived fast and they manage to put a stop to the fire. The police was acting very calmly and eager people were all hanging around and around…
After the incident, one manager told me that he took his lap top, but left the passport inside. For my part, I left the cash in the safe completely got ignored of it at that point of time.
I think this experience of today left me to ask a question myself. Are you clear of your exit?? The emergency exit!
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(I have uploaded some photos of the bus which got fire, soon after the incident, in my album but could not take photos with flames)
