THREE CHILDREN AMONG 14 KILLED IN FIRE AT INDIAN WEDDING PARTY

▶ Six of bride’s family die as people try to escape by jumping from apartment building window

A fire at an apartment complex in India’s eastern Jharkhand state killed at least 14 people, including three children, police have said.

Twelve others suffered severe burns and at least 18 were rescued from the 13-storey Ashirwad Tower in Dhanbad city, where they gathered on Tuesday for a wedding.

Police said the injured were taken to the city’s government hospital for treatment.

“The cause of the fire is yet to be known,” city police chief Sanjeev Kumar told The National. “The injured are all stable.”

It took nearly two hours and a dozen fire crews to extinguish the flames. In television footage, several police officers could be seen leading people from the building to safety.

The fire started in a flat owned by Subodh Srivastav on the fourth floor of the residential complex, with local media reporting that it was caused by an earthen lamp lit as part of the celebrations.

Mr Srivastav’s daughter had left for the marriage hall when the fire broke out. His wife and mother were reported to be among the victims.

“The marriage ceremony was under way at the time of the incident. At least six people from the bride’s family were killed,” Mr Kumar said.

Some residents reportedly tried to jump out of the window to escape the blaze.

“We were getting ready when people started screaming … there was the fire,” Poonam Devi, one of the wedding guests, told local media.

“We tried to run out using the stairs but there was a sudden power cut. There was darkness everywhere, but somehow we managed to escape.”

Some bodies were reportedly burnt beyond recognition and family members struggled to identify them.

Dr UK Ojha, head of the medicine department at the Shahid Nirmal Mahto Medical College, where the postmortems were conducted, said that one family member identified the body of a woman by her sari.

Mr Kumar said that a team of police, forensics and town planning department officials were working to ascertain the cause of the fire.

The Jharkhand High Court yesterday issued a notice to the government seeking a report on the tragedy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences for the victims. He announced compensation of 200,000 rupees ($2,500) to the bereaved families of those killed and 50,000 rupees for those injured.

“Deeply anguished by the loss of lives due to a fire in Dhanbad,” Mr Modi’s office tweeted.

“My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones. May the injured recover soon.”

It was the second deadly fire in the city in less than a week.

At least five people were killed after a blaze broke out in the storeroom of a private hospital on Saturday. India has a poor fire safety record and incidents are common.

The lax enforcement of building laws has resulted in numerous tragedies.

Nearly 10,000 people were killed in fire incidents in 2020, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, making it one of the country’s biggest public safety hazards.

India is rapidly expanding its cities and towns, where some multistorey structures – residential and commercial – operate without any official monitoring or safeguards such as fire exits and alarm systems.

The national building code and local laws require businesses and residential buildings to be inspected and have fire safety certificates.

But the rules are regularly ignored or broken, with building certificates sometimes acquired through bribery.

Some bodies were reportedly burnt beyond recognition and family members found it difficult to identify them