A nine-month-old was among four people who died due to suffocation when a major fire broke out in a house on the ground floor of a multi-storey building in Delhi’s Shahdara area on Friday. Two people were also injured in the incident, according to news agency PTI. At 5:22 PM the fire officials received a phone call about a blaze in a house, after rushing to the spot, the fire services doused the flames by 6:55 PM.
Delhi Fire Services (DFS) chief Atul Garg stated that rubber materials such as wipers and a rubber-cutting machine kept in the house had caught fire.
The Delhi Police and fire officials rescued six people from the building and rushed them to GTB Hospital. Upon receiving information about the fire, police rushed to the spot and rescued three people with the help of locals, they were taken to the hospital in a PCR van, the PTI report stated.
After the fire officials reached the site, they managed to bring out three more persons, including the child. They were reportedly in a semi-conscious state when they were rushed to the hospital. Four of the people brought out of the building were declared dead on arrival by the doctors. The deceased were two women, aged 28 and 40, a nine-month-old girl, and a 17-year-old boy. They died of suffocation. A 16-year-old girl and a 70-year-old woman were admitted for treatment.
The building, which has four floors, has a single staircase. Legal action has been initiated against the owner of the building, Bharat Singh, for not taking appropriate fire-safety measures. He had kept the ground and first floor for himself and had given the other two floors on rent.
Further investigation is underway, as per PTI.
The police said multiple teams have been formed to investigate the case. Forensics experts were also called to the incident spot to collect samples to ascertain the actual cause of the fire. The forensic teams reached the spot after the fire incident and they will visit the scene again on Saturday.
This incident comes just a week after six people, including four women, were killed in a fire that broke out in a multi-storey building in northwest Delhi's Pitampura.