Fire breaks out in Howrah flat, elderly woman dead

A 65-year-old woman was killed when a fire broke out in her flat on Netaji Subhas Road in Howrah on Thursday.

Police said the victim Moubani Das had received more than 90 per cent burn injuries and succumbed to them when taken to Howrah District Hospital.

According to an officer of the state fire and emergency services department, the fire broke out in the first floor flat when the victim was offering puja. 

Preliminary investigation revealed that a curtain caught in fire from a candle. The fire spread fast and the woman got trapped in the room. 

Local people rushed hearing her cry for help. But they failed to enter the flat to rescue her. The fire even threatened to spread to the adjacent flat. 

Two fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames. Fire fighters went to the spot and initiated the work to douse the flames. They took around half an hour to enter the flat.

Entering the room where the woman was offering puja, they found her lying unconscious and she received serious burn injuries. They brought her out of the flat and took her to the hospital where she succumbed to her injuries. 

Her husband went out for some work when the fire broke out in the flat. Police initiated a probe into the incident.

This comes after a day when three separate incidents of fire broke out in the city on Wednesday.

In the first incident, a fire broke out in the Electronics Regional Test Laboratory (East) situated on the top floor of a multi-storeyed office complex at DN Block in Salt Sector V on Wednesday.

Sixteen fire tenders were pressed in to service and fire fighters took around three hours to extinguish the fire.

Another fire broke out in a paint manufacturing unit at Patipukur on Wednesday afternoon. Four fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames. Firefighters took around four hours to extinguish the fire.

In the other major incident of fire burnt down a go-down of ceiling fans at Behala on Wednesday afternoon. The fire fighters are yet to ascertain the exact cause of the fire but suspect that an electric short circuit inside a small office room in the go-down led to the incident. A local resident fell ill while fighting to douse the flames.