The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Providential escape for labourers

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Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Providential escape for labourers

Staff Reporter

Fire lasts for 15 minutes and leaves ashes all around

- PHOTO : NAGARA GOPAL

Reduced to rubble: Residents rummage through whatever is left of their belongings after a fire accident in their settlement in Miyapur on Monday.

HYDERABAD: It was indeed a lucky escape for the daily wage earners. When flames engulfed some 200 huts in Madinaguda and reduced everything to ashes, almost all the residents were out. While men and women were out for work, children were in their school nearby.

For those settlers from different States eking out their livelihood, it was a bolt from the blue. Not only their belongings, but their hard earned money too went up in flames. The only consolation for them was that there was no loss of life.

The residents reported seeing smoke emanating from their huts at around 11 a.m. and immediately rushed to the spot. They tried to extinguish flames with water tankers available at the construction site but to no avail.

“The fire lasted around 15 minutes and by the time fire engines arrived, there was nothing left but ashes and cinder,” said eye-witnesses. Powerful winds rendered their efforts to douse the fire fruitless.

Dry palm leaves, a highly combustible material also played its part in spreading the fire quickly.

Majority of the workers were from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Srikakulam in the State and were working on a residential construction project by MyHome, a reputed firm in the city.

P. Vishnuvardhan Reddy, Khairatabad MLA, who visited the spot announced that the government would provide each affected family with Rs.1,500 and 10 kg. rice. The company announced that it would pay each family Rs.1,000 besides making temporary arrangements for food and shelter.

The inferno consumed everything of whatever little they had - savings, gold, TV sets, utensils, mobile phones, food, clothes and blankets. Residents estimated that property worth Rs.30 lakh was destroyed in the fire.

Children, their little feet black with soot, helped their mothers rummage through ashes to collect anything that has saved itself from getting burnt. One housewife carefully picked half-burnt rice from the ashes and painfully stored in a plastic bucket.

Burnt currency notes

It was only on Sunday that workers received their salaries, which they tucked in their one-room accommodations. “I carefully stashed mine and my husband’s wages in this container this morning,” said Rani showing burnt currency notes. Hari Bau Khute, who was working with the company for over three years, would have left for his village on Monday. “I took Rs.25,000 to invest in some agricultural works in my village, now I don’t even know how I am going to repay the amount,” he said.

A youngster Giribabu from Srikakulam is confused. Upon being advised by friends, he invested his savings in LIC bonds to the tune of Rs.10,000 and is clueless if he could recover the amount.

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