Hundreds of families were rendered homeless on a chilly Wednesday evening as a fire gutted the Nonadanga slum off EM Bypass.
Police said the cause of the fire could not be ascertained till late on Wednesday evening, as most of the shanties had been completely gutted, making it difficult for firefighters to locate the seat of the blaze before it was fully extinguished.
Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma and state minister for disaster management and civil defence Javed Khan visited the spot.
Verma said families whose homes had been destroyed would be temporarily shifted to a safe location.
“There was a report of a fire at Anandapur basti around 6.20pm. Police, the fire department and the KMC (Kolkata Municipal Corporation) are working together to bring the fire under control. It is under control now. The cause of the fire can be ascertained once the forensic team arrives tomorrow. There is no report of entrapment or injury,” Verma said.
“Around a hundred houses have been gutted. The affected families will be temporarily shifted to a safe place,” he added.
Several residents — young and old — ran helter-skelter, trying to salvage their belongings from the flames. Many said they had “lost everything”.
People in the locality said no one was trapped and everyone was safe.
Around a month ago, a fire broke out at a paint godown located at the congested Gulshan Colony, a residential area in Anandapur not far from Nonadanga along EM Bypass, where the fire was reported on Wednesday.
Last month, another fire was reported at an oxygen cylinder godown in a residential neighbourhood at Kankurgachi where oxygen cylinders flew like missiles, endangering lives and causing property damage.