Noida slum fire guts about 30 shanties

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Two children were charred to death in a fire that gutted about 30 shanties in a slum in Navada village on Saturday.

The administration has announced relief of Rs one lakh to the families of the victims identified as 5-year-old Suba Rao and 3-year-old-Sangeeta, City Magistrate Kanchan Sharan said.

The two children were asleep when the fire broke out and their parents could not rescue them. "Their bodies were recovered after we extinguished the fire," said Somdutt Sonkar, Fire Station Officer.

"Around 11.30 AM we got a fire call. Four tenders were rushed to the site at Navada. It took an hour to extinguish the fire completely," he said.

The fire was suspected to have started from a cooking gas cylinder. Four large LPG cylinders and 60 small LPG cylinders were recovered from the debris. It appears majority of the families had two cylinders which exploded in the fire.

Hearing the sound of explosions, villagers and residents from nearby residents rushed there. The administration will give Rs 2,000 to each family whose shanty was destroyed in the blaze.