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At least five people, including four of a family, were killed in a fire that broke out in a three-storeyed residential building in the eastern Indian state of Odisha's capital Bhubaneswar Thursday, officials said.
"The fire began on the second floor of the house in Bhubaneswar's Buddheswari colony, belonging to a well-known city hotelier, this morning when many people were fast asleep. And soon it spread to other two floors," a senior police officer said.
While the hotelier, Satpal Singh, escaped with burn injuries, four of his family members, including his younger son, daughter-in-law and two minor grandchildren, and their domestic help died of suffocation in the fire, he said.
Six other family members were rescued by fire fighters who rushed to the spot soon after receiving a distress call from the family members.
"We had to break the glass windows in the first floor to enter the house and rescued those trapped. But by that time, five of them were unconscious. They were rushed to a nearby hospital where five of them were declared brought dead due to asphyxiation," a fire official said.
A probe has been ordered into the incident, though an electrical short-circuit is suspected to be the reason behind the fire, the officer added.
Fires in residential buildings are common in India. But most of these houses lack basic fire safety norms and fire safety equipment.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
