KOLKATA: An elderly woman died, while few others injured in yet another incident of fire that broke out in a residential building in West Bengal's Howrah district on Wednesday after a gap of hardly one week since 19 August when nine people, including seven Bangladeshi nationals, died in a hotel fire on Mirja Galib Street in the New Market area in Kolkata.
Today, the fire broke out in the third floor of the building inside the Uttarayan housing complex at Amtala in the Andul-Mouri around 1 pm. The body of 65-year-old Rupa Mukherjee was found inside a room of a flat in the building, police said. Few other residents in the building were also because of suffocation triggered by the fire.
A Fire Brigade official said, five fire-fighting engines were pressed into service to bring the fire under control within two hours. Twelve people have been rescued from the five-storey building. Thick black smoke soon engulfed the housing complex with 22 residential buildings and surrounding area, creating a suffocating situation for residents.
Five fire engines rushed to the spot after the blaze was reported. Firefighters, assisted by police personnel, launched an operation to evacuate residents trapped inside their flats and bring the fire under control. Local residents gathered near the building after noticing thick smoke billowing from the complex, while panic spread among those living in the area.
A forensic inquiry will be conducted to ascertain the cause of the fire, the official said. Initial reports suggested that the fire may have been caused by a short circuit, although the exact cause has not yet been ascertained. There were also conflicting accounts about the floor where the blaze started.
Earlier, in two separate incidents of fire in hotels in Kolkata’s Mirja Galib Street and Tarapith temple town of Birbhum district in the state on 17 and 19 August respectively 18 boarders died. Nine people including pilgrims died in a hotel fire in Tarapith and the remaining nine people, including seven Bangladesh nationals, were killed in a devastating blaze in the Kolkata hotel Shikha Inn’.