11 migrant workers 'charred beyond recognition' in Hyderabad

Eleven people died, while one survivor was hospitalised, after a scrap godown in Bhoiguda in Hyderabad caught fire in the early hours of Wednesday.

The Times of India reported that the 12 people, migrant workers from Chapra in Bihar, were sleeping “on the first floor of Shadwan traders’ scrap collection centre” when the building caught fire, shutting the only exit on the ground floor, leaving the workers locked in the blazing building. The hospitalised victim jumped out from a window. The bodies have been shifted to Gandhi Hospital. Though the fire tenders received the information at 3 am, it took them over three hours to control the fire.

TOI quoted V Papaiah, a regional fire officer, as saying, “There were empty liquor bottles, paper, plastic, cable at the scrap godown. The first floor was connected to the ground floor through a spiral metal staircase. There were two rooms on the first floor and all the 11 bodies were recovered from one room lying on top of one another. The bodies were charred beyond recognition.” The bodies have now been sent for postmortem.

CV Anand, Hyderabad Police Commissioner told TOI that the victims had been working in the godown for the past two years, “for a monthly salary of Rs. 12,000”. He added, “No one knows that workers were living here and the owner seems to have provided them accommodation on the first floor above the scrap godown. Several victims seem to have died due to smoke inhalation.”

According to IANS, Anand told reporters at the scene that negligence by the timber depot owner and violation of safety rules led to the incident.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 5 lakh for the families of the victims, “expressed shock” at the incident, and instructed for the repatriation of their bodies to Bihar.