A woman and her four-year-old daughter were among some of the residents trapped in a five-storey building at Razabazar, where a fire broke out on Sunday.

All residents of Mariam Plaza were rescued. Ten fire tenders took around an hour to douse the flames.

The fire started in a printing press on the ground floor of the building around 1.30pm, a fire services officer said.

The first two floors of the building at the crossing of Narkeldanga Main Road and Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road, next to Rajabazar market, houses commercial establishments. The rest of the floors are residential.

Mohammad Shamir, who stays in a flat on the second floor, said he was speaking to his wife Iram Naaz over the phone when she started shouting “aag lag gaya (a fire has broken out)”.

“I was at a friend’s place in Patwar Bagan Lane nearby. I was scared for the safety of my wife and our four-year-old daughter Zaina Hooriya. I asked them to rush to the top floor before disconnecting the call and heading for home,” said Shamir, a businessman. On his way, he alerted neighbours in the building that his wife and daughter were stuck.

The mother-daughter duo were in the flat of Mohammad Afroz Alam on the top floor of the building when Shamir reached. “Smoke had engulfed our flat, too, leaving us virtually trapped. We were almost choking,” Afroz said.

“The corridor was filled with thick smoke. We could not enter the building at first attempt. Some neighbours and I managed to reach the top floor and rescued my daughter and wife and others,” Shamir said.

The building has eight flats, all owned by Mohammad Arif, who also owns the printing press. The printing press did not have a portable fire extinguisher, a firefighter said.

“It’s an old building. We had a tough time reaching the seat of the fire in the rear portion of the building. A short circuit could have triggered the fire. The place was full of papers. There were also chemicals. The fire spread fast and charred some of the godowns in the adjacent Razabazar market,” he said.

Arif admitted the absence of a fire extinguisher: “It is a small press and I did not install any facility. There are scores of such presses in the area. The press was set up about a year ago. It did not have any chemicals,” he said.

Director general, fire services, Jag Mohan, said the cause of the fire will be knowm after a forensic test. “We are awaiting the report,” he said.