Couple dies in house fire, their three family members rescued

A 60-year-old man and his wife died of suspected suffocation after a fire broke out in their bungalow in Ghodbunder Road area of Maharashtras Thane city in the wee hours of Saturday, while three of their family members were rescued, a civic official said.

A 60-year-old man and his wife died of suspected suffocation after a fire broke out in their bungalow in Ghodbunder Road area of Maharashtra's Thane city in the wee hours of Saturday, while three of their family members were rescued, a civic official said. The blaze erupted around 3.20 am, he said. ''The fire broke out on the first floor of the two-storey bungalow in Waghbil. The couple and other members of the family were asleep on the first floor when the incident took place,'' chief of the Thane Municipal Corporation's Regional Disaster Management Cell (RDMC) Yasin Tadvi said. On being alerted, the personnel of the local fire brigade unit as well as the RDMC rushed to the spot and launched a rescue operation. They broke open the windowpanes and gained entry into the house to rescue the trapped family members, he said. The couple was found unconscious in a bedroom. The husband-wife duo along with other family members were rescued and the fire was doused by around 4.30 am, he said.

''All of them were rushed to a local hospital, where the couple - Abhimanyu Madvi and Ramabai (55) - was declared brought dead. They apparently died of suffocation as a result of smoke caused by the fire,'' Tadvi added. The first floor bedroom was completely gutted in the blaze, he said, adding that window curtains might have caught fire first due to an oil lamp kept near a deity in the room before it spread.

The bodies of the deceased were sent to a government hospital for post-mortem, while their three family members were hospitalised and are out of danger, he said.

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