Six killed in Uttar Pradesh village fire

At least six people were killed and about 100 shanties gutted in a fire on Friday in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar district, police said.

At least six people were killed and about 100 shanties gutted in a fire on Friday in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar district, police said.

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"The incident took place on Friday afternoon in the Bishunpura village in Kushinagar. While two people died of suffocation, four were burnt to death," police inspector R.A. Singh told IANS over telephone.

While the exact cause of the fire is still to be ascertained, police believe it spread due to strong winds from a garbage dump in the village, which the villagers had set ablaze.

It took about an hour for the fire fighters to put out the blaze, Singh said.

Kushinagar is some 300 km from Lucknow.