MARDAN: Wooden articles worth millions of rupees were reduced to ashes when a furniture factory caught fire in the Rashakai Industrial Estate here on Thursday.

Tehsil municipal officer, Mardan, Farman Ali Shah told mediapersons that the fire broke out in the Wood Land furniture factory apparently due to a short circuit in the wee hours of Thursday.

He said that fire tenders of TMA and Rescue-1122 rushed to the site and began rescue operations. He, however, said that it took almost six hours to control the fire. The TMO said that no one was injured as there was no worker in the factory at the time of the incident.

Iftikhar Khan, owner of the factory, told mediapersons that the fire had caused around Rs50 million loss to him. Sheikh Maltoon police station had lodged a report on the complaint of Iftikhar Khan and started investigation into the incident. Mr Iftikhar told the police that he did not know about the cause of the fire.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2014