Kollkata, June 11 -- Around 4,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were destroyed after a fire broke out in a government building in Kolkata on Wednesday, people aware of the developments said.

"Preliminary investigation suggests that the fire started on the third or fourth floor. We wonder how it reached the eighth and ninth floors. The fifth, sixth and seventh floors in between were not damaged," state fire minister Kaushik Chowdhury said on Thursday.

The fire broke out around 9.50 am at the 10-storey administrative building of the zilla parishad of South 24 Parganas district in Kolkata's Alipore area.

Ten fire tenders were pressed into service to bring the fire under control.

According to fire officials, the building houses severa...