New Delhi, April 27 Two minor children were charred to death on Sunday as a blaze destroyed 150 jhuggis in a cluster in Sector 17 of north Delhi’s Rohini, a Fire Department official said.
The fire is suspected to have started in one of the jhuggis near Shri Niketan Apartment and resulted in the bursting of a number of 5-kg cooking gas cylinders used for cooking, said an official.
“The fire started around 11.55 a.m. and as per our SOP, four to five fire tenders were rushed, but it was declared a medium category fire by 12.40 p.m.,” said M.K. Chattopadhyay, Deputy Chief Fire Officer, West Zone.
He said a total of 26 fire tenders were pressed into service.
Earlier, the firemen encountered difficulties in reaching the incident spot due to congestion on the road leading to the slum cluster.
The cluster has 800-1,000 jhuggis and almost 150 of them have been damaged,” said a police official.
A eyewitness said a dark smoke column rising from the jhuggi cluster was visible from almost a kilometre away.
In a separate incident, a fire erupted in a wooded area under Shakarpur police station’s jurisdiction around 11 a.m.
Three fire engines were dispatched to the scene, which brought the blaze under control within an hour.
Fire Officer Bhim Sain said, “We received a call that there was a fire in the trees on the side of the road leading towards Laxmi Nagar. We rushed vehicles there and controlled the fire.”
The Delhi Fire Service handles a large volume of emergency situations annually, with over 36,000 incidents being reported annually. It has 67 fire stations and needs 18 more to address the growing city’s requirements.
On Friday, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta announced that her government planned to spend Rs 504 crore on new machinery and infrastructure.
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