Fire in Andheri high-rise kills 3

The couple were both 74, and their house help, 42, had been living in their house for the past 20 years

An elderly couple and a member of their house staff died in a fire that broke out on a 10th floor apartment of a 14 storey building, Riya Palace, in Lokhandwala Complex, Andheri, on Wednesday at around 7:20 am. A senior fire brigade officer said while the fire started in the bedroom where the couple was resting, they could not ascertain its cause and hence asked the police to investigate.

Fire in Andheri high-rise kills 3

Dikshit Gedam, deputy commissioner of police, Zone-9, said, “We have registered a case of accidental death (ADR) and investigating to see if the cause of the fire was due to anybody’s negligence. However, prima facie nothing suspicious has been found yet.”

At the time, Chandraprakash Soni, 74, who was visually impaired, his wife Kanta Soni, 74, and their house help Ravi, 42, were resting in rooms where the windows were tightly shut with air conditioners on.

The fire brigade arrived 30 minutes after the first call was made, said a housing society member. After the three were pulled out from the flat, they were rushed to Cooper Hospital, where they were declared dead. The couple died of burns and the house help of suffocation, said divisional fire officer in-charge, Purushottam Sandikar. They resided in twin flats -- 1001 and 1002.

How the neighbours helped

Krishan Arora, the building’s secretary who resides on the fifth floor, was alerted about the incident by his son who noticed smoke billowing out of the 10th floor apartment, while he was on his way for morning walk. “He called the fire brigade, and rushed upstairs along with a few other residents, and together they tried to break into the house,” said Arora.

They used a spare key that the Sonis kept with a neighbour and entered the flat. “It took 15 to 20 minutes to open the door with much difficulty,” said Arora. “But it was too late; the apartment was filled with smoke. One of us used the hose from the building’s firefighting system to spray water in the house. It was of no help, and by then the fire brigade arrived.”

Sandikar said the fire was extinguished within 30 minutes of their arrival and the cooling operations lasted till 8:58 am. “As the house was packed, with all windows tightly shut, it was hard to save them,” said Sandikar.

Arora added, Chandraprakash’s body was found charred in the bedroom and Kanta in a similar state in the passage. Ravi had suffocated to death in the living room. “It is unfortunate that we have grown so used to air conditioning. If a window were open, some smoke could have been let out,” said Arora, who came to live here in 2001. The Sonis were already residents on the 10th floor.

“Chandraprakash had lost his eyesight around 10 years ago but was still active. He was a member of the building’s managing committee, and ran a ship maintenance company in Singapore, along with his son,” he said.

The couple’s sons who live in Singapore and Washington are on their way to Mumbai. Arora added, “Ravi has been with them for over 20 years, he’s like family. Ravi is from Bihar, where he has a wife and two children. We’re trying to contact his family.”

Fight for a fire station

While the managing committee is considering installing CCTV cameras on every floor, the larger issue weighing on everyone’s minds is the absence of a fire station nearby.

“The closest fire stations are in Irla, Vile Parle and Goregaon. It takes a fire brigade between 30-45 minutes to get here,” said Dhaval Shah, one of the founders of the Andheri Lokhandwala Oshiwara Citizens Association (LOCA).

Incidentally, there is a reserved plot for a fire station at the Chitrakoot Ground, mentioned in the 1991 development plan. But all follow-ups by citizens with the BMC have been in vain. “We had last approached the civic body about this on September 23 – we hope this tragedy will shake them into action,” said Shah.

Shah elaborated that the government has given the ground to a developer, 20% of which is reserved for the fire station. He is purportedly using it for “weddings, sports turfs, film sets or parking Yulu e-bikes, apart from setting up a developer’s office”.

When HT visited the ground after the fire, it found a pandal was set up for the Durga puja festivities.

A senior fire brigade officer added, “The land which belongs to the state government has been given to a developer to build the fire station. We have been following up too but it has yielded no result.”