A fire at a suspected illegal garment factory near the Indian capital early yesterday morning killed 13 people and injured several others, officials said.
The workers were sleeping in the cramped leather factory, which was in a residential building on the edge of New Delhi, when the blaze broke out, likely caused by a short circuit.
“The fire broke out at a factory in a residential area of Sahibabad around 4:30am in the morning. Thirteen people who were sleeping there have died and another two or three people are getting treated at the hospital,” local police spokesman Bhagwat Singh said.
Local fire officer Abbas Hussain said that two people were rescued after they woke up soon after the fire started.
“The two of them woke up by chance and say they screamed for others to wake up while running toward the terrace, but others did not wake up, perhaps it was already too late,” Hussain said.
He said that the factory was most likely illegal.
“From what we see, there was nothing proper and the factory must surely not have been a legal one, but we can say for sure only after a proper investigation,” he said.
India has a poor record on workplace safety and deadly accidents are commonplace.
Eight workers were killed last month in a huge explosion at a fireworks factory in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, while a massive blaze at a firecracker factory in Madhya Pradesh killed 15 people in May 2014.
A fire at a factory in New Delhi where leather bags were being stitched killed six workers in November 2013. Some of the victims were trapped inside the building and were burned beyond recognition.
South Asia’s lucrative garment industry has an alarming safety record, with watchdogs saying safety rules are routinely flouted.
In September, a huge fire triggered by a boiler explosion at a packaging factory just north of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka left 25 people dead.
In November 2012, at least 111 workers were killed when a fire engulfed a nine-story garment factory outside Dhaka.
The accident was followed by an even bigger disaster six months later when, 1,138 people died after another clothing factory complex collapsed.
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