Three buses of a private travel company were gutted in a fire in the Kukatpally area of Hyderabad on Monday. The incident occurred at a parking lot near the IDL Cheruvu area in the wee hours of Monday.
The Bharathi Travels buses that were parked there caught fire, said an ABP Desam report. The nearby drivers and staff reportedly attempted to extinguish the fire, but the flames quickly spread and engulfed three vehicles. As a precaution, four other buses were immediately moved from the area.
Two fire engines rushed to the scene to extinguish the fire, but by then the buses had been completely gutted. The police registered a case and began an investigation. The cause of the fire was not known. A short circuit is suspected to have caused the fire.
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In another similar fire accident, 10 workers were injured in a blaze at a private scrap godown at Gaganpahad in Shamshabad, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, on Sunday night, said an IANS report.
A fire broke out in the godown around midnight after an explosion occurred when the workers were cleaning chemical bottles. Soon, flames engulfed the entire godown as inflammable goods, including pharmaceutical chemicals, oil containers, and plastic material, caught fire.
The injured employees were reportedly all from Uttar Pradesh. Two of them suffered critical injuries and were admitted to the Osmania Hospital. Firefighters rushed to the scene after receiving the information and extinguished the fire after an hour-long operation.
According to the police, one of the workers was smoking while cleaning the chemical bottles, which may have caused a reaction with the combustible gases, resulting in the explosion.
Officials said no fire safety measures were put in place. The police registered a case of negligence against the owner of the godown and launched an investigation.
This is the sixth fire accident in godowns or commercial buildings in Hyderabad in less than a month. Three people were killed in a huge fire at a multi-story commercial complex in Secunderabad. The building was completely gutted in the fire, and it was demolished by the authorities.
(With IANS inputs)