50 shanties gutted in Haryana's Ghasola slum blaze, second in a month

GURUGRAM: More than 50 shanties were gutted in a fire that broke out in a slum cluster in Ghasola near Sector 49 on Tuesday afternoon. No casualties were reported, but around 100 people have been rendered homeless, officials said.
This is the second such incident in the same slum area in over a month. On January 9, another major fire in the slum cluster destroyed over 100 shanties and left around 600 people homeless.
Fire officials said that they were alerted about Tuesday’s fire around 1.30pm.
“Some 7-8 fire tenders from different fire stations were rushed to the spot. It took the firemen more than two hours to douse the flames. Fortunately, there were no casualties,” an official of the fire department said.
Inspector Rajesh Kumar, SHO of Sector 50 police station, also reached the spot with police teams.
“Soon after we got the information about the fire, we reached the spot for rescue work. More than 50 shanties were gutted in the blaze. Prima facie, an electrical short circuit seemed to be the reason behind the fire,” he said.
Most of the people left homeless by the fire work as daily wagers and auto-rickshaw drivers. They are originally from Bihar and UP.
January 9’s fire in the slum apparently started from a cooking stove in one of the hutments and was aggravated by the bursting of gas cylinders one after another. Fortunately, no casualties were reported as people had vacated their shanties when they sensed something was burning and saw plumes of smoke in the air.