The warehouse of a pharma company - Avro Lab Private Ltd - was gutted in the early hours of Sunday in the Pharma City at Parawada near here as fire broke out at around 3 a.m.

There were no workers in the warehouse at that hour and the fire was brought under control after two hours, according to R. Trinadha Rao, Inspector of factories.

The company manufactures anti-cancer intermediates and as the warehouse was some distance away from the production units there was no damage to production facilities, according to him. However, as a measure of precaution, production was stopped. The company went into production in 2010 with one unit and raw material was stored in the warehouse for commissioning the second unit, according to S.B Ranganadh, the production-in-charge.

"We have stored tetra hydro furan - a solvent - in 45 drums in the warhouse, with each drum carrying 200 litres. It caught fire and the whole godown was gutted," he said and added that the cause of the fire had not yet been ascertained.

The estimated loss of the raw material could be in the region of Rs 40 lakh or so and the warehouse was totally gutted.

>sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in

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