Nine members of a family, including five children, were killed, and a medical store gutted when a major fire broke out in a two-storey structure at a chawl in Andheri (west) in north Mumbai on Thursday morning.
The fire was first noticed inside the medical store Wafa Medical, located on the ground floor of Nigam Mistry chawl along Wireless Road at Juhu, at 6 am. Soon, the fire spread to two upper floors of the structure, where the family that owns the medical shop lived.
Having received a call from the mishap site at 6.18 am, the fire brigade personnel reached the scene by around 6.37 am and brought the blaze under control by 7.15 am. Three fire tenders, a jumbo tanker and two ambulances were engaged in the dousing operation.
By the time they doused the fire, all nine members of Khan family – trapped inside the two congested floors –died of burns and suffocation.
The police identified the persons killed in the mishap as Mozhel Khan (8), Unnihay Khan (5), Aliza Khan (4), Tubba Khan (8), Altaz Khan (3 months), Saburiya Mozin Khan (65), Siddik Khan (35), Rabil Khan (28) and Sabiya Khan (29),
Injured in the mishap was a fireman Avinash Shirgaonkar, who was involved the fire extinguishing operation. He was treated in a nearby hospital and discharged.
The fire brigade personnel prima facie attributed the mishap to a short-circuit. “We suspect that short circuit might have caused fire. But, an investigation that is underway will establish as the exact cause of fire,” chief fire officer of Mumbai Fire Brigade P S Rahangdale said. The fire brigade and police officials said that the electrical fittings inside the medical stores, housed in a 120 sq ft room, caught fire.
“The fire spread to upper floors of the same structure where as many 18 persons were living. The victims were sleeping on two floors above the medical store, when the fire engulfed their floors,” a senior fire official said.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is ascertaining if the upper storeys of the fire-ravaged building were “illegal”.
Thursday’s was the first major fire mishap witnessed in the metropolis during this year. Earlier on October 10 last year, Eight persons, including a woman, were killed when a leak from domestic gas triggered a major fire in a restaurant “City Kinara”, a Chinese food joint, at Kurla in north-central Mumbai.