At least 30 people were injured in a major fire that broke out on the premises of a scrap godown in outer Delhi’s Buddh Vihar area on Thursday around 2.30 pm.
Six fire tenders were rushed to the spot and it took firefighters over two hours to douse the flames, following which a cooling operation was launched, a fire official said.
The injured people include mostly locals of Budh Vihar phase-I in outer Delhi’s Rohini sub-city. “They saw smoke emanating from the 50-square-yard scrap godown and went ahead to extinguish the flame themselves, while others informed police and fire departments,” a district administration official said.
The situation turned worse when industrial cylinders inside the godown started exploding, said officials, adding that in no time the walls of the godown collapsed too. Once the fire tenders and police teams reached the spot, they had to launch an immediate rescue operation.
Of the 30 people injured, 15 suffered severe burn injuries and they have been referred to lNJP Hospital while the others are admitted at Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital and Brahm Shakti Hospital, the official said.
A case has been registered in connection with the matter but the cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained, police said.
Three other fire incidents were reported earlier on Thursday. While a fire broke out at a forested area behind Rajghat, another incident took place at lady Hardinge Medical College in central Delhi.
Dense smoke was also seen emanating from the Bhalswa landfill site used for dumping garbage by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation. However, no casualty has been reported in any of the three cases.
In the Rajghat firefighting operation, as many as 10 fire tenders had to be rushed in and it took a few hours to bring the situation under control. Meanwhile, the fire at lady Hardinge Medical College is suspected to have occurred after short in an AC and five fire tenders were rushed there.
Eight people died and several others were injured in two separate fire incidents which took place in the city on Monday.