Devastating fires in Delhi and Indore on Wednesday killed 17 people, many of them children, and gutted several shops in busy markets in Ahmedabad and Chandigarh, triggering panic and large-scale firefighting operations.
Authorities rushed teams to contain the flames and rescue those trapped, ordered probes into the incidents and announced financial compensation for the victims.
In the national capital, nine members of a family, including three children and a 70-year-old woman, were killed after a massive fire tore through a multi-storey residential-cum-commercial building in southwest Delhiās Palam area. Three others were injured, two of them jumped from the building at Ram Chowk Market near Palam Metro Station in a desperate attempt to escape the flames.