Fire at cloth godown kills 3 in sleep

Three people died when a fire gutted a cloth godown in Khotwadi, Santacruz, at 3 am on Thursday. They had been sleeping in the godown, a ground-plus-two-storey structure in a narrow bylane in Santacruz West.Pappu Devraj Vaidya, 22, Ramdev Praveen Singh Jhala, 22, and Ramesh Hirjee Kathre, 20, were all workers in the godown, which also served as a cloth-cutting factory.Once the fire was doused, the upper two floors were demolished as the structure could collapse, a BMC official said.

The cause of the fire could not be determined, said Uday Tatkare, chief fire officer. “It proved difficult for us to take the fire truck to the narrow bylane, and we had to use hose pipes to get water to the site,” he said.Usually more people sleep in the godown, but three of them were not there on Wednesday night. Had they been there, they could have also died, said Jaishree Mathur, who lives in the same lane. “We did not realise there had been a fire until we woke up and saw the fire brigade.” 

Another onlooker said the godown was not adjacent to other buildings, so other houses did not suffer much damage. These houses, in one of the city’s oldest areas, have been marked for slum rehabilitation.“The upper floors were unauthorised and we will serve a notice to the owner,” said assistant municipal commissioner M M Kshirsagar, H West ward (Bandra West). A survey will assess whether other houses in the area are authorised, he added.