Pune factory fire claims atleast 17 lives, including 15 women; PM Modi condoles loss of lives, announces ex-gratia

Devendra Potphode, Chief Fire Officer, PMRDA, said, "The company deals with water purifying chemical, Chlorine dioxide, which is not fire-prone. It is packed in plastic, and while the packing work was in process, the heat-up sparked. The plastic then immediately caught fire".

New Delhi: A spark in the heat-up is learned to have caused a fire in plastic packing material at Pune`s SVS Aqua Technologies factory, which claimed the lives of at least 17 people, including 15 women on Monday. According to reports, the fire broke out at SVS Aqua Technologies, which manufactures chlorine dioxide and is located in the Pirangut MIDC area of Mulshi tehsil on the outskirts of Pune city. Devendra Potphode, Chief Fire Officer, Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) told ANI, "The company deals with water purifying chemical, Chlorine dioxide, which is not fire-prone. It is packed in plastic, and while the packing work was in process, the heat-up sparked. The plastic then immediately caught fire". Potphode informed that women who were packing could not understand which way to run as the fumes from both plastic and chlorine were too strong, adding that a total of 17 bodies, out of which 15 were women, have been recovered from the site.