Fire at five-storey building in Ghaziabad, no casualty

Ghaziabad: A massive fire broke out at a five-storey residential building in Khora area of Ghaziabad on Tuesday evening. Fire officials said that no casualty was reported in the incident, however, goods worth lakhs was charred in flames.

The fire broke out at around 4 pm from a room located on the first floor of the building situated in Archna Vihar colony in Khora area. "There are around 25 rooms in the building and nearly 70-75 people live there. The fire broke out at a room located on the first floor of building when the family living in the room had gone out for work. The flames could only spread to second floor and the upper floors were trapped in the smoke," said Chief Fire Officer of Ghaziabad, Sunil Kumar Singh.

Around 40-45 persons were present in the building at the time of incident. Some of them managed to escape while others rushed to the upper floors. "Four fire tenders were pressed into actions who took around half an hour to completely douse the flames and all those trapped inside the building were successfully rescued," added Singh.

The officer further said that they are yet to ascertain the exact cause of fire. "As of now we cannot say how the fire broke out but we suspect that naked live electricity wires which were touching the building could have triggered a short circuit which resulted in fire. There were around four gas cylinders kept inside the room, thankfully, none of them blasted which could have caused a great threat to the building and those trapped inside," the officer said.

Meanwhile, residents of the Khora area feared a threat from the naked electricity wires and poorly maintained electricity poles which have resulted in similar incident in the past too. "Several persons including children have lost their lives after coming in contact with the naked live wires in Khora area. The electricity poles and also poorly maintained and we have reported the matter to electricity department a several times but no one pays heed to our complaint," said Saurabh Kumar, a resident of Khora area.