Muscat: A huge fire broke out in a furniture company's warehouse in the heart of Muscat just after 10pm.
A senior employee of the Al Asfoor furniture company, who was standing across the raging warehouse, was dazed even as the huge warehouse property of the leading furniture company in Oman was on fire.
At intermittent intervals, blasts could be heard as Royal Oman Police (ROP struggled to keep curious onlookers at a safe distance.
"Don't know what these blasts are," the employee said, adding that this was the company's main warehouse. "It is too early to say how much goods were inside," he said.
The warehouse is diagonally opposite an Omanoil filling station, triggering panic. The filling station, which is just four lanes across the burning warehouse, was shut down and a fire engine was kept ready near the petrol station.
The police also prevented people from taking photographs as scores of curious onlookers overlooked the risk factor and kept taking pictures with digital cameras or phones. The police did take away some cameras.
About 700 metres down the lane, the Indian festival of Navratri had just started with around 2,000 to 3,000 people expected.
"We had just started the music and dance (stick dance) when the fire broke out," Raju Ved, one of the organisers of the nine-day festival told Gulf News.
He said that they will continue with the celebrations on the advise of the police.
"The police advised us that stopping the celebrations could trigger further panic and increase influx of curious people on the roads."
All the roads leading up to the Al Asfoor warehouse were sealed off as fire engines kept going up and down to reload their tankers.
Oman doesn't have fire hydrants like many cities but the Muscat Municipality has started placing hydrants recently, even though the network is not complete.
"This is the biggest fire I have seen during my stay in Muscat," Prabhakar Pethkar, who has spent three decades in Oman and owns a Coffee Shop in the filling station opposite the warehouse that caught fire.
The cause of fire was not known at the time of going to the press.
