Mangalore: Shops in Ullal catching fire is a happening news from time to time, and on Saturday early morning turn shops were gutted at a loss of only Rs.50 lakhs to the owners in Ullal.

Harish, owning a hardware store and relative Pavish, a general store owner, suffered heavy losses by continuous fire for hours form 2AM(midnight past), as it took 3 hours to control the blaze by fire brigade, having 5 engines and making 11 trips to refill water from a pond near Ullal Dargah. 30 firemen were on duty.

Only when houses caught fire, police were alerted by a passer-by. An electric pole also caught fire due to faulty wiring and MESCOM had to cut off power to save neighbourhood.

The gutted and charred shops were 100 years old.