For an hour or so shortly after Thursday midnight, Fire and Rescue Services personnel and residents of a neighbourhood at Chakkaraparambu in Ernakulam district of Kerala were a panicked lot as occupants of a house on fire rented by a family of three, including a one-year-old girl, ‘went missing’.
Two units of Fire and Rescue Services personnel from the Thrikkakara fire station led by assistant station officer Abdul Nazeer rushed to the spot after receiving a call about a fire breakout in the house around 1 a.m. Later, another unit from Gandhi Nagar also joined the rescue work. Though local residents claimed that the occupants were in the house till a while before the blaze was noticed, the firefighters could not find anyone inside.
“By the time we reached, the local residents had almost doused the fire and removed the gas cylinder from the kitchen. Gas stove and properties inside the kitchen were found smashed, while furniture in another room were also smouldering. The residents had told us that a ‘fight’ seemed to have happened in the house as sound of properties being smashed could be heard just before they noticed the fire. However, we could not find anyone inside or outside the house,” said Mr. Nazeer.
