By Our Reporter
Shillong: Two saw mills inside the Meghalaya Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) complex at Umiam were reduced to ashes in a major fire on Sunday afternoon.
Fuelled by strong winds, the fire managed to engulf all quarters of the staff working at the sawmill rendering all of them homeless. No causality was reported in the fire incident.
All machineries at the mill producing mainly plywood including loads of timber were reduced to ashes by the fire which, witnesses say, spread from a nearby forest.
“We tried to put out the fire but since there were only a few of us, we were helpless,” one Latina Warbah, a worker at the mill, said.
Owner of the plywood factory, Vikash Jain, said, “Right now I am concerned about where to put them up until we can construct new quarters for the workers.”
Over eighty labourers are employed at the plywood factory.