Twelve persons were killed when a major fire broke out in a snack shop at Andheri’s Sakinaka locality in north Mumbai, after the structure collapsed in the early hours of Monday.
The victims, all men aged between 28 and 30 years, were sleeping inside the Bhanu Farsan Mart located inside Makharia compound along Sakinaka’s Khairani road at Andheri (East), when the fire broke out inside the shop.
Having received a complaint about the break-out of fire at 4.15 am, the fire brigade personnel — accompanied by three fire engines, four jumbo water tankers and an ambulance — rushed to the scene immediately afterwards.
The fire fighters extinguished the fire at 4.38 am and pulled 12 persons from inside the shop, which gave way shortly after the fire enveloped the structure.
All 12 persons, who had sustained severe burn wounds, were declared dead within hours after their admission to the nearby Rajawadi Hospital at Ghatkopar in north-east Mumbai. “All the twelve persons had sustained 100 per cent burns. They were declared dead between 8.15 am and 9.37 am,” a hospital spokesperson said.
Informed sources at the Rajawadi Hospital attributed the fire to a cylinder blast that took place inside the farsan shop, located in a gala admeasuring 60 X 30 sq feet. The electric wiring, installations and huge stock of eatables, furniture and sheets were gutted in the fire.
The bodies of the deceased persons, which had not been identified till late in the evening, were sent for post-mortem shortly after they were pronounced dead.