Seven coaching students singed when a hostel in Kota caught fire due to short circuit of transformer. Though no serious injury reported so far due this mishap.
The incident happened early morning in a six floor hostel where 70 engineering and medical aspirants are residing. All the students have been rescued.
Most of the students were in deep sleep when the fire set in. They started running down and a ruckus was created. Few students fell down and suffered fractures in legs. Among these students, Bhavishya from Madhya Pradesh, who is preparing for NEET, suffered injuries in his legs while another student Arpit Pandey inflicted fracture in his legs when he fell down from second floor.
How the Kota hostel caught fire?
According to Rakesh Vyas, chief fire officer (CFO) of Kota Nagar Nigam, the fire happened due to negligence of the hostel owner. A transformer has been set up illegally at the ground floor and the fire happened due to short circuit in the transformer. Police is investigating the reasons behind the fire. The issue is serious as lakhs of students come to Kota every year from across the country to seek coaching for medical and engineering entrance. They stay in hostels, which have mushroomed in Kota of late. Most of these hostels don't have proper license to run hostels and don't have safety provisions.
The fire after getting ignited from short circuit, gradually spread to the second and third floor of the building. Students were sleeping in these two floor. After flames reached the second floor through the staircase, students jumped from the second floor to escape from fire.
The fire brigade, officials of Nagar Nigam and police controlled fire after great difficulty. The hostel was lacking any fire fighting equipments and there was no provision of escape route on event of any fire mishap. The superintendent of Police Amrita Duhan was present in the spot and was seen counselling the students.
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