10 of 29 admitted in hospital critical; blaze triggered by gas leak Twenty-nine people were injured,among them 17 children,after a fire broke out in the AO Block slum cluster in Shalimar Bagh on Tuesday morning. Police and eyewitnesses said the fire started around 8.30 am when the owner of a grocery shop in the slum was transferring cooking gas from a large cylinder into smaller ones to sell them. The gas leaked and caught fire after coming in contact with a stove lit in the vicinity. Police said the fire soon spread to the narrow bylanes of the slum.Though fire engines arrived soon,they were unable to enter the congested area. The residents pitched in and the fire was doused by 9 am. A resident,Ravi,said,We were lucky the cylinder did not explode,otherwise the entire slum would have been destroyed. The injured were rushed to the nearby Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital (BJMH). Deputy Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Chanderkant said,We also received patients with 70 per cent burns. We have transferred them to Lok Nayak Hospital for specialised care. Dr J N Sharma,additional MS (Accident & Emergency),Lok Nayak Hospital said: We have deputed senior specialists to take care of the patients. Ten victims are in a critical condition. One of the critically injured is 15-year-old who was filling water from a pump outside his home when the fire started. A Class XII student,the boy suffered burn injuries on his face,back,arms and legs. Doctors said his chances of survival are slim. Residents who escaped the blast only heard of what happened after returning from work or,in the case of eight-year-old Radha and her younger sister Priyanka,after returning from school. The siblings parents and elder sister were injured in the fire. While their mother and 13-year-old sister were admitted to BJMH,father Purshottam he suffered burn injuries on his legs is admitted at Lok Nayak Hospital. (The reporters are students of EXIMS) APRIL fires: Two on April 11: At Mundka plastic scrapyard and in the jungles near the Jawaharlal Nehru University. April 10: At a container depot in Tughlaqabad,goods worth crores destroyed. April 8: At a slum cluster in Ghazipur,East Delhi; 1,000 slums gutted. Four on April 2: In the garage of former Union minister Ram Vilas Paswans official residence in Central Delhi; in a shop in Karol Bagh; at Income Tax office and at a slum cluster in Mehrauli April 1: A high-voltage electricity line snapped and fell on a hutment,killing two children
