At least 20 shanties and a plastic godown were gutted in a fire on Monday at a slum in Bajghera village in Haryana's Gurugram.
The fire broke out during early hours of Monday and when the situation began to slip out of hand, fire tenders from Faridabad, Rewari, Jhajjar and Bahadurgarh too were summoned to join local fire tenders in attempts to douse the flames, as per officials.
Officials added that around 20 fire tenders are deployed since 1 am, but the operation was not completed even after 13 hours. They further said no casualties were immediately reported.
Officer Ramesh Saini said according to eye-witnesses, the fire broke out at a slum and later spread across the godown.
Saini said, "It appears that a cylinder in the jhuggi exploded. No casualties are reported yet. We are dousing the fire from each part of the area."
This is the third major fire in Gurugram district since April. On April 8, a massive fire gutted 50 shanties in a slum in Gurugram's Sector 74. That fire was also reported in the vicinity of a plastic.
"There were reports that the fire had spread across an area of over 1.5 acres due to plastic and polythene material which was lying at the slum. The fire was so big its smoke was visible from quite a distance away," according to The New Indian Express.
On April 25, a fire in a slum near Kankrola village in Gurugram's Manesar gutted hundreds of shanties, burnt some vehicles, and killed two people. Around 500 people became homeless with the fire in the slum cluster of scrap dealers spread over 25 acres, according to reports.
(With PTI inputs)
