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Upon arrival, the police found that the fire had engulfed flats on the second, third, and fourth floors of the building. (Express Photo by Abhinav Saha)
A day after nine people died in a fire which broke out at a residential building in Shahdara’s Vivek Vihar in East Delhi, the entire building was vacated on Monday and an investigation was launched by the Delhi Police to ascertain the exact cause of the blaze.
Police officers said that they might also use 3D laser mapping technology, if required, to understand the circumstances under which the four-storey building caught fire.
The police have used such mapping technology in major fire incidents earlier, including the Arpit Hotel fire in Karol Bagh and the Anaj Mandi fire in 2019. 3D mapping is a process of obtaining three-dimensional information about the site of an incident, especially when a structure has been severely damaged, with the help of softwares.
According to a senior officer, the rear portion of the four-storey building was the most affected. The structure, they added, might have been weakened as all three flats on the second, third, and fourth floors were gutted in the fire.
The building, located in B Block of Vivek Vihar, has a parking space on the ground floor and two four-bedroom flats both on the front and rear side on each of the other floors. It was built in 2017 on an 800-square-yard plot. The flats were sold for Rs 3.5-4 crore, police sources said.
The fire turned the world of three families — residing on the second, third, and fourth floors — upside down as it cost nine lives. Families living in flats on the front side of the building, however, managed to escape. On Monday, all the families vacated their flats and moved to their relatives’ homes for the civic authorities to complete inspections and declare the structure safe. In the afternoon, forensic and crime teams inspected the building and collected samples as part of the ongoing investigation.
Officials said that teams from the Power department and the Delhi Fire Services will soon inspect the site too to help determine the exact cause of the fire.
Prima facie, police suspect that a short circuit on the second floor had triggered the blaze. They have also not ruled out the possibility of a short circuit in an air conditioner that might have caused an explosion and subsequently the fire.
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An officer said that AC mechanics and experts suggest that houses located near drains have a higher risk of faults or gas leakage. The building, B-13, is located near the Ghazipur drain.
Toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide, often present in the air near drains, can corrode the copper pipes and condenser in an AC unit. Due to this corrosion, the refrigerant gas tends to leak almost every year.
“When the gas leaks, the AC oil also escapes along with it. As a result, the compressor can overheat, increasing the risk of an explosion. Such an explosion could have also led to the fire in Vivek Vihar,” the officer said.
The deceased were identified as Arvind Jain (60), Anita Jain (58), Nishant Jain (35), Anchal Jain (33), Akash Jain (1), Shikha Jain (45), Nitin Jain (50), Shailey Jain (48), and Samyank Jain (25). The bodies of Arvind and four of his family members were found on the second floor. Nitin, along with his wife and son, was found dead on the fourth floor, while Shikha was found on the second floor.
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