Four people, including to minor, were killed after a massive fire broke out at an illegal scrap warehouse in Neemrana area of Rajasthan's Kotputli-Behror district on Friday evening, April 24. Two workers are reportedly missing in the incident.
The blaze spread rapidly in the scrap godown due to discarded perfume bottles containing flammable liquid. The deceased were the residents of Jharkhand. Their bodies have been sent to the hospital for DNA confirmation.
The fire erupted at around 5 pm on Friday in a scrap warehouse situated in Mohladia-Bichpuri industrial area. Fire fighters struggled for four hours before they brought the flames under control at around 9 pm. Flames were seen far from a kilometre away.
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According to the police, the warehouse was illegally set up on agricultural land and was rented by a scrap dealer. The incident is suspected to have occurred when workers were breaking the perfume bottles from the scrap, from which a spirit-like, flammable liquid was leaking.
During this, a pickup truck driver who had arrived to load the scrap lit a beedi and threw away a burning matchstick. The chemical caught fire instantly, leading to a rapid and uncontrollable blaze. Around seven people, including men, women and children, were present inside the warehouse at the time of the incident.