Mumbai: Four men were charred to death in a fire that gutted a cloth godown in suburban Kandivli here Sunday, a civic official said Monday.
The city also witnessed two more incidents of fire in suburban Khar and Mahim Sunday in which two persons were critically injured.
The Kandivli blaze was reported in the godown, located in Damu Nagar near MIDC bus stop, at around 4 pm Sunday, said an official from the Disaster Management Unit of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
“Four casualties were recovered from debris of the godown by fire personnel who were conduction fire fighting operations at the spot by 5 AM Monday”, he said.
They were taken to Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivli, where doctors declared them brought dead, he said. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
The official said fire personnel are conducting search operations at the storeroom premises. When asked about the identity of the deceased, the official said prima facie they are workers but it is yet to be confirmed. In Mahim, a blaze occurred in a slum near Raheja Hospital, in which a 14-year-old boy and a 50-year-old woman received serious burn injuries. “The boy sustained 90 per cent burns and the woman 10 per cent burns. They are battling for life in Sion hospital”, a civic official said.
In Khar, blaze was reported in the basement of a eight-storey building, but no one was injured in the incident.
Meanwhile, police have booked the contractor and a supervisor in connection with the collapse of a two-storey under-construction structure in a chawl in suburban Goregaon Sunday morning.
A week ago, a massive fire had broken out in suburban ESIC hospital in which 11 people were killed and over 175 others injured.
Meanwhile, RTI activist Anil Galgali has demanded that reports on fire audit be made public.
“There is a provision for lodging an FIR in case a society or a commercial complex fails to carry out a fire audit within three months of serving a notice by Fire Brigade. But they hardly made any efforts in registering any FIR or taking strict action. Whatever action that was taken by officers concerned was never made public”, he alleged. (PTI)
