The flames did not reach the hospital.

Varanasi:

At least 200 two-wheelers were charred as a massive fire broke out in the vehicle parking area of Varanasi’s Cantt railway station in Uttar Pradesh during the early hours of Saturday.

Visuals show a huge blaze in the parking area as officials of the fire brigade and police department were engaged in dousing the fire. In one of the videos, a team of police officials can be seen bringing a water hose to the incident site and splashing water on the fire. Massive smoke and a haze due to the smoke can also be seen.

Around 12 fire brigade vehicles reached the spot to extinguish the fire, along with teams of Government Railway Police (GRP), Railway Protection Force (RPF), and local police team, officials said.

There were no reports of injuries.

According to the initial investigation, the fire was caused due to a short circuit.

“There were some cycles too that have been burnt…The fire was due to a short circuit. We are conducting further investigation,” CO GRP Kunwar Bahadur Singh said.

Most of the two-wheelers that were burnt in the incident belong to railway employees, officials said.

“I parked my bike around 12 am…One of the people near the vehicle parking told me that one short circuit had already taken place around 11 pm and was fixed. After a few hours, one passenger told me that there was a huge fire outside. I took out my bike and parked it on the other side…Soon after, the fire had spread across the parking lot,” a railway employee said.

The fire was put out after two hours, officials said.

Howrah, West Bengal:

Three children lost their lives after a fire broke out in a house in West Bengal’s Howrah, a fire officer said on Saturday.

The incident took place in Uluberia town on the occasion of Kali Puja.

Upon receiving the information about the fire, two fire tenders immediately rushed to the spot and extinguished the fire.

Divisional Fire Officer of Howrah, Ranjan Kumar Ghosh said that the charred bodies of three children (9 years old, 4 years old and 2.5 years old) have been recovered and sent to the hospital for further medical procedures.

“We received information about a fire in a house. Two fire tenders immediately rushed to the spot as soon as the information was received. The fire has been extinguished but three children (9 yr old, 4 yr old and 2.5 yr old) lost their lives in this incident. The charred bodies were recovered from the house and it has been sent to the hospital for the post-mortem. The fire tenders did their work effectively otherwise more houses could have burnt in this incident,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Hyderabad:

A man, said to be in an inebriated condition, was arrested after he ignited a lighter and started a fire at a petrol pump in Hyderabad on Saturday evening, officials said. 

The incident took place around 7 pm when the accused, identified as Chiran, arrived at the petrol pump in the Nacharam area in a visibly drunk state, with a cigarette lighter in his hand. One of the employees at the petrol station, Arun, asked the accused if he was planning to light up the device. He, then, challenged and provoked Chiran to light it up if “he had the guts” to do so.

Reacting to this, the accused lit up the lighter while the employee was dispensing fuel in a scooter – resulting in a sudden burst of flames.

There are were around 10 to 11 people at the petrol pump, including two employees, when the fire was ignited.

A CCTV footage of the incident shows a chilling moment as a woman and a child standing near the fire made a narrow escape. All the other people standing at the petrol pump can be seen running away.

The police also arrested Arun and charged the duo with mischief by fire and explosives.

Both the accused, who hail from Bihar, will be presented in court, the police said.

“This dangerous act not only put lives at risk but could have caused a catastrophic explosion, especially in this crowded area with heavy traffic,” Inspector G Rudvir Kumar, Nacharam Police, said.

Thiruvallur:

 Three people died in a fire that broke out at a paint factory in Tamil Nadu’s Thiruvallur, the Superintendent of Police said.

Visuals from the spot showed fire tenders present at the spot as dousing operations were underway.

Further information is awaited.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A teen from Colorado, United States, is facing up to six decades in jail for killing a family of five after setting fire to the wrong home for revenge over his stolen iPhone, as per a report in the New York Post. Kevin Bui, who is now 20-years-old, pleaded guilty this week to starting the late-night fire in a Denver neighbourhood in August 2020 after tracking his stolen phone to the vicinity using the “Find my iPhone” app. The man, who was aged 16 at that time, was seen as the mastermind behind the fire that killed the Senegalese family, which included two infant daughters.

The Diol family- a couple in their twenties, their daughter, their relative and her daughter, were all killed in the blaze. Three others broke bones while trying to escape the fire by jumping from the second floor.

The CCTV footage captured that night showed Bui and his two friends wearing face masks and hoodies when they set fire to the home. The three were named suspects after obtaining a search warrant to get Google to provide IP addresses that had searched the home’s address within 15 days of the fire. They were then arrested almost five months after the incident.

Dillon Siebert, who was 14 years old at the time, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year and was given a sentence of three years in juvenile detention and seven years in a state prison programme for young inmates.

In March, Gavin Seymour, a 19-year-old who had pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder, was given a 40-year jail term.

Meanwhile, Bui was prosecuted as an adult and was given a sentence of up to 60 years in jail after he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder.

Betul, Madhya Pradesh:

A bus carrying polling officials and electronic voting machines caught fire in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district, causing damage to a few EVMs, according to a senior official.

However, no polling staff and the driver of the bus suffered any injury in the incident, Betul Collector Narendra Suryavanshi told PTI over phone.

The incident took place near Gola village around 11 pm in the district on Tuesday, he said.

The fire took place because of a spark in the bus, but no one suffered any injuries in the incident, the collector said.

The fire damaged EVMs of four polling stations, including booth numbers 275, 276, 277, 278, 279 and 280, he said.

The fire tender doused the flames which had totally gutted the bus, he added.

Six polling parties and as many EVMs were there in the bus at the time of the incident, among which four EVMs got damaged while two others are safe, Suryavanshi said.

In the four affected EVMs, either a control unit or a ballot unit suffered damages in the fire, he said.

Asked whether the incident would affect the vote count recorded in the EVMs, the collector said that he will send his report to the Election Commission on the issue and the poll body will take a decision regarding re-polling on the affected booths.

A total of 72.65 per cent polling was recorded in the Betul Lok Sabha seat, a poll official said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)