Delhi: Massive Fire Breaks Out at Cloth Godown, 9 killed

A massive broke out at a three-storeyresidential-cum-commercial building in outer Delhi's Kirari area, killing atleast nine people, including three children, the Delhi Fire Services (DFS) saidon Monday. Eight fire tenders were rushed to the spot after a call of a fire ata house at 12.30 am.

Theground floor of the building housed a godown for clothes while the other threefloors were residential in nature, according to the fire services. The blazewas brought under control by 3.50 am, a DFS official said.

Earlierthis month, 43 people were killed in a fire in a four-storey building housingillegal manufacturing units in north Delhi's congested Anaj Mandi area.

In the Kirari fire incident, three people wererescued. Pooja (24) and her daughters Saumya (10) and three-year-old Aaradhyajumped to an adjacent building to escape the blaze, a police official said.

However, the deceased have been identified as Ram Chandra Jha (65), the building's owner, Sudariya Devi (58), Sanju Jha (36), Guddan and Uday Chaudhary (33) and his wife Muskan (26), their children Anjali (10), Adarsh (7) and six-month-old Tulsi, the fire services official said. The official said that no fire safety equipment was found in the building and said that a part of the building collapsed as there was a cylinder blast on the second floor of the building.

Thecause behind the fire is being investigated. It is suspected that the firestarted due to a short-circuit which led to the cylinder blast and thesubsequent collapse of a wall of the building.  Ram Chandra Jha had rentedout the ground floor to Vijay Singh Katara, who claimed that cloth worth Rs 20lakh was gutted in the fire. Guddan is the mother-in-law of one Ram ChandraJha's son, according to officials who said that Uday Chaudhary was a tenant.Pooja's husband and Ram Chandra Jha's son Amarnath Jha was in Haridwar tocomplete some rituals after his brother's death.

Furtherinvestigations are underway, the officials said.