Blaze destroys 500 hutments in Rithala; 30-yr-old man dies

A 30-year-old man was charred to death while another suffered burn injuries after a massive fire broke out in a slum cluster near Rithala metro station in northwest Delhi on Friday night.

- Gargi Shukla and Karn Pratap Singh

The fire turned nearly 500 jhuggis to ashes, rendering around 2,000 slum dwellers homeless, as per officials from the Delhi Fire Services (DFS) and Delhi Police.

While fire department officials said they were ascertaining the exact cause of the fire, residents of the slum claimed that a spark in the nearby electricity transformer led to the fire which expanded after some cooking gas cylinders caught the flames. The fire also claimed lives of some animals and gutted a few vehicles, a resident said.

At least 28 fire tenders and three firefighting robots worked for more than 10 hours to douse the fire, a DFS official said, adding that the fire control room was informed about the incident at 10.56pm. Initially, five fire tenders were dispatched; however, 23 more vehicles, three firefighting robots and over 60 firefighters were deployed later.