Fire at Shahbad Dairy slum leaves 100 families homeless
NEWDELHI: Nearly a hundred families were rendered homeless after t heir shanties were reduced to ashes in a fire in north-west Delhi’s Shahbad Dairy on Tuesday afternoon.
No casualty was reported in the blaze but the residents, most of them rag pickers, said they lost everything as the shanties doubled up as storerooms for the scrap they traded in.
A fire department official said they received a call around 11.30am about a fire break out in the slum following which fire tenders were sent to the spot.
Ismail Sheikh, one of the residents, said he was at home when the fire started in a shanty some distance away.
“As the neighbours raised an alarm, I came out of my house and saw the fire spreading rapidly. I realised that I could not save any of my belongings. Moments after my family members left the shanty, the fire engulfed our house also,” said Sheikh.
Sheikh added that the slum had come up 10 years ago when migrants — mostly from West Bengal — settled on an empty strip of land.
‘LIKE A SERIAL BLAST’
A fire department personnel said that over a dozen small 5kg cylinders exploded while the fire fighting was on.
“It was like serial blasts as cylinders were exploding at regular intervals. A strong wind was blowing and desert coolers were on in many shanties, which contributed to the spread of fire,” the DFS personnel said.
Even after the fire had been put out, fire personnel were seen cautioning the victims from going and searching for any belongings as the remaining cylinders could go off. The fire also damaged a few hand pumps that the residents had set up.
The fire was doused around 1.30pm by 23 tenders. This was the second incident of fire in a city slum in two days. In the earlier incident in Mansarovar Park, a six-year-old girl was killed and 250 families were rendered homeless.
Sub divisional magistrate (Narela) Purva Garg, who reached the spot, said efforts were on to provide the families shelter in a nearby municipal school. “We are in talks with the North Delhi Municipal Corporation to provide us space and if that does not work out, we will arrange for tents and mobile toilets,” said Garg.