The flames that affected an electric motorcycle store also injured ten other people
At least eight people passed away and another ten were injured after a fire in a shop selling electric motorcycles in southern India, a police source informed EFE on Tuesday. “Eight people have died and ten others have been injured” in the fire, which started on Monday night, Deputy Police Commissioner Chandana Deepti said from Secunderabad in the southern state of Telangana.
The source indicated that the fire started in an electric motorcycle sales shop located under a hotel, according to the initial investigation, due to a short circuit in one of the batteries, which caused a chain reaction. A good part of the fatalities in the hotel fell unconscious due to smokewhile several videos broadcast on social networks show several people jumping out of windows to escape the fire.
This fire comes after a series of recent incidents with electric cars and motorcycles in various parts of India, which have led the authorities to announce stricter safety measures for the batteries of these vehicles.
Fires, landslides and other similar accidents are frequent in India, often due to the poor state of infrastructure and lack of maintenance, factors fueled by corruption and illegal practices. One of the last major fires in the Asian country took place on August 1, when at least five people died and eleven others were injured in a private hospital in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. According to the latest available official data, in 2020, 9,329 accidental fires were recorded in India in government buildings, schools, residences and other places, more than a hundred of them in factories. In these incidents 9,110 people died and 468 were injured.