File picture of a group of children trying to keep themselves warm on a foggy morning in Purulia

Jan. 4: A blast of bone-chilling north wind blew burning twigs to a straw wall triggering a fire that charred two children to death and severely injured their friend in a Purulia village.

They had lit the fire to ward off the cold inside the hut, meant to shelter paddy guards but serving as a playroom yesterday.

Kalpana Murmu, 6, and her cousin Rohan, 5, were killed. Their friend Shagun Murmu, 4, is in hospital.

The tragedy took place at Dhanardih village in the Kasipur area of Purulia, around 275km from Calcutta.

But a cold wave sweeping parts of Purulia, Bankura, Burdwan, Birbhum and West Midnapore raises the fear of more such accidents, especially involving children.

Purulia experienced a minimum of 7 degrees Celsius today. At Sriniketan, near Santiniketan, it was 7.1 degrees (see chart).

“The entire region, inclu-ding parts of Jharkhand and Orissa, is experiencing a cold wave. The suffering has been worsened by the speed of the north wind going up,” said the weather office in Calcutta.

The children were playing in a field behind their homes when it started getting colder. The hut they went into was in the middle of a clearing surrounded by stacks of paddy.

A police officer said it was not unusual for children in the region to light a fire by themselves because they see their elders do it every day. “Blown by the wind, a piece of burning twig must have fallen on the hay and the shelter was quickly engulfed in flames.”

Mangal Murmu, an uncle of the charred cousins, was the first to see the smoke. “Farmhands who thrash paddy in the clearing had gone home early because of the cold. It was around 4pm when I saw smoke in the khamarbari.”

When Mangal and a few others reached the hut, they saw Shagun emerging. “Her face was black and her clothes had been singed. She was screaming in pain. With all our attention on her, it did not strike us that others could be inside,” Mangal said. “We don’t know how the children got their hands on the matchbox.”

After firemen put out the blaze, villagers found Kalpana and Rohan in the hut. “The flames must have engulfed it so fast the children hardly had time to escape,” said neighbour Nishakar Murmu.

Shagun has 40 per cent burns, mainly on her forehead and arms.

On December 29, six workers of a Bankura hatchery died of suffocation after they had closed all the doors and windows in a room and lit an oven to ward off the cold.

Birbhum officials will decide tomorrow whether morn- ing school timings should be changed. Many now begin classes at 6.30am. However, Purulia and Bankura are not thinking on those lines yet.

Woollen caps are selling like hot cakes in the region.