A room in the officer’s rest house at the Howrah station new complex was damaged in a fire on Thursday.

Railway employees quoted an assistant accounts officer who was in the room as saying he had seen sparks in an AC unit that led to the fire.

Flames and smoke billowing from the window overlooking the road in front of the new complex spread panic among passengers.

“People were shouting and screaming,” a railway employee said.

The assistant accounts officer of the railways was in the room on the second floor when the fire broke out around 5 pm. The officer, who had reached the city from Varanasi, switched off the AC and ran out of the room to alert people in the office that manages the rest house.

“The flames were not very tall, but they generated a lot of smoke. The room as well as the corridor was filled with smoke,” Swarup Das, a member of the housekeeping staff, said.

Das said a TV, some electric wires and an almirah had been gutted. “The fire brigade doused the flames in about 45 minutes,” he said. The officer was not injured.