Delay in response from police and fire departments, say Bazarghat residents

Hyderabad: Bazarghat residents claimed that the fire broke out at around 8.30 am, but police and fire departments received SOS calls only after 9.30 am, a delay of around one hour.

Inquiries revealed that after the residents spotted a fire in the apartment, they started helping out immediately. They said they tried to douse the fire using buckets of water, move out the chemical containers and also rescue inmates. Somewhere, someone could have ignored calling the fire services, though a call was placed to the discom office to cut power.

DG Fire Services Y. Nagi Reddy said that though the residents claimed that the fire broke out at around 8.30, it could have started around 9 am or even after that. “None of them had noticed the time of the fire. If it was a one-hour delay as claimed by them, the damage would have been much worse, given the amount of combustible material stored in the area,” he said.

Meanwhile, primary findings indicate that the victims died of asphyxiation followed by burns. A team of two associate professors and senior residents from the Department of Forensic Medicine, Osmania General Hospital, who conducted the post-mortem examination opined that due to thick smoke inhalation, the victims could have become unconscious and collapsed, after which the fire devoured them.

Viscera samples from all the bodies have been collected and sent for forensic examination for a detailed report on the cause of the death.