Chennai: It was a day of massive fire accidents in Tamil Nadu with at least two forests, including the famed Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in the Nilgiris, going ablaze and over 170 cars belonging to a defunct call taxi company being gutted in Chennai.
The Mudumalai Tiger Reserve was shut down till Tuesday after blazes at five different spots, suspected to be man-made, destroyed acres of forest land putting the safety of diverse fauna at risk. Forest officials said that fires were noticed in Singara, Bokkapuram, Moyar, Acha-karai and Mandradiyar.
The Forest Department has announced a reward of Rs 5,000 to those who give clues to the perpetrators of the fire. In Chennai, close to the Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Hospital, a leading private deemed university, fire destroyed over 170 cars belonging to the UToo call taxi company, which shut shop many months ago.
The company had parked over 250 cars in a private parking yard, for about two years now. Around 1.45 pm a blaze, the cause of which is being investigated, was noticed and soon it spread to multiple cars. By the time fire fighters put an end to the inferno, over 170 vehicles were gutted.
The other day, a similar incident happened near Bengaluru, when 300 cars were gutted in a fire. Similar incidents of motorcycles getting gutted in a spiral fire have been reported in Mumbai‘ s suburbs, too.