2 charred to death after fire breaks out at high-rise in Mumbai's Andheri

Mumbai: Two members of a family, including a child, were charred to death after a fire broke out at a residential high-rise building in Mumbai's suburban Andheri (West) on Tuesday evening.

The fire started in an apartment located on the 10th floor of a 21-storey building on Vira Desai road around 8:20 pm when the family was performing a puja, an official of the BMC said.

The flames later spread to some portion of 11th floor of the building.

As the fire engulfed the flat on the 10th floor, two of its occupants tried to take shelter near the iron grille of a window in their drawing room, but got charred to death, an official at the Oshiwara police station said.

The deceased were identified as Sagar Sharma (7) and Vicky Sharma (25), he said. Three other family members were later rescued from the bedroom. One of them received 25 per cent burn injuries and was admitted to a nearby hospital, he said.

Five fire engines and four jumbo water tankers were pressed into service and the flames were doused after about two hours, the BMC official said. The bodies were later retrieved and sent for postmortem, he added.

The exact cause of the fire would be ascertained after an inquiry into the incident.