Fire Breaks out in Central Port Louis on Royal road, chinatown, in hardware store.

The Port Louis City center woke up today to the sirens of the Fire trucks. Shock and awe could be read on the faces of the hundreds of persons gathered all around the place to witness this fire. The building sheltered a hardware store, a cold storage and a shop at the back. For Chinatown festivals, some persons are also used to selling Chinese cakes in front of the building. The fire trucks arrived, but soon were empty!. No water to extinguish the fire!. 

The Firemen were just standing around and watching the fire, as most persons, after having secured the zone. One woman who was around since the morning said,"Since 07h30 the firemen are around and nothing is being done to put off the fire!"

One man, seemingly angry, added,"What is the use of the CCTV cameras, if they cannot even see that a fire broke out, how will they see criminals?".

A quite skeptical man later while talking to his friend concluded,"This building is probably not insured. As most buildings taking fire around, you will see in a few months, this will be replaced by a several floors building".

The problem being faced by owners these days is that many of those shops have been renting the space since many years back and without contract. Legally, they cannot be forced to move out. One of the easiest way, would be to put fire to the place. The tenants would be forced to move out then. Or, at least, the owners will be able to build a several floors building and get a maximum of rents out of the space.