GUNTUR: More than 100 houses, including thatched ones, were destroyed in a fire at the Ramalinga Raju Colony on the outskirts of Guntur city, under the Guntur rural mandal limits, Saturday.
According to the locals, flames erupted from a house while a woman was cooking on an LPG stove and spread all over the colony in minutes and destroyed over 100 houses. Five fire tenders took about three hours to extinguish the fire.
However, the fire officials said that as many as five domestic gas cylinders caught fire and exploded intensifying the mishap. They maintained that the exact reason for the mishap is yet to be ascertained.
But victims complained that a high tension wire passing over the colony snapped and fell on a house leading to the mishap and they also alleged that there was no prompt response from the fire department officials.
The heatwave had further fanned the flames and helped it spread in all directions within minutes.
Guntur MP Galla Jayadev and West constituency MLA M Venugopal Reddy visited the scene and assured the victims of all possible help. Guntur RDO B Ramamurthy said that `50,000 to `1 lakh property loss had been incurred by each household in the mishap.
It is said that chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had also enquired about the incident with the Guntur officials and directed them to provide all help to the victims.