A fire broke out in a four-storey apartment in Noida’s Sector 66 on Wednesday morning, killing two people, the latest in a series of blazes in the National Capital Region (NCR) during an unforgiving summer that underscored the widespread absence of safety systems in residential buildings.
Fire and police officials said after a preliminary investigation that a spark from an electric motorcycle being charged in the parking lot may have caused the fire.
Noida Police arrested the owner of the rented building, Krishna Kumar, 40, and booked him under Section 106 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Act on charges of causing death due to negligence. They also booked Kumar’s accountant Shrijan Das Gupta and the caretaker of the building, Dharmendra. Police did not respond to requests for comment asking why they were not arrested.
Fire department officials said the building that was struck by fire was illegal. But they did not separately confirm whether a NOC had been issued for the fire.
The building is 75 meters away from the main road, and can only be reached through a narrow corridor, which hampered firefighting efforts and prevented fire trucks from reaching the building.
Two died from suffocation, and more than 100 residents were rescued
Officials said all vehicles in the parking lot were destroyed as the fire and smoke quickly spread to the upper floors, trapping many residents inside their homes.
The two deceased were identified as Sneha Srivastava, 24, who hailed from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, and Rishabh Kumar, 27, from Madhya Pradesh. They are both residents of the building and work in private companies.
Srivastava lived alone on the third floor while Kumar lived on the fourth floor. “We found the two bodies on the stairs between the second and third floors. There were no external injuries. They died due to suffocation,” Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida Central) Swatantra Kumar Singh said.
Shailendra Kumar Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Noida), said: “A motorcycle that was riding on the floor of the residential building caught fire and then the flames spread to nearby parked cars. The fire quickly intensified and engulfed the parking area before the thick smoke spread to the upper floors.”
No homes were significantly damaged in the fire. Police said that more than 100 residents (50 families) were evacuated.
The residents fled through the balcony
Residents said the building consists of three buildings – A, B and C – each with a separate staircase. Residents said that the fire led to the stairwell being cut off in Building B.
“Many of us ran to the balcony and crossed to buildings A and C before escaping,” said Nikhil, a resident whose property was destroyed.
Residents said the narrow corridor forced firefighters to extend long hoses from the nearest accessible point. “Since the exits were closed, people climbed onto the balcony. Someone from the nearby construction site extended a ladder, and many residents escaped through it,” said Ajay Singh Chauhan, who runs a shop in the area.
Brijesh Shankar, Sneha’s cousin, told HT that she moved into the building only two-three months ago after getting a new job. “She even invited me on Tuesday to meet her, but I was not able to visit her.”
The latest in a series of NCR fire tragedies
Wednesday’s fire comes weeks after a series of major fires in Delhi. On June 3, a fire at an illegally run B&B in Hauz Rani in Malviya Nagar killed 22 people, most of them foreign nationals in the city for medical treatment.
On May 3, a fire in a four-storey residential building in Vivek Vihar killed nine people, including a one-year-old child, after a suspected air conditioner explosion.
“The fire-affected building was an illegal structure. Our fire engines reached the spot within eight minutes of receiving the information. However, as the lanes were very narrow, the vehicles could not reach the building directly and the firefighters had to extend water hoses from the nearest accessible point to carry out fire-fighting and rescue operations,” said Pradeep Chaubey, chief fire officer, Gautam Budh Nagar.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Noida MLA, Pankaj Singh, termed the incident tragic and demanded a fair investigation.
