Woman suffocates to death after fire breaks out in Ludhiana building

A 55-year-old woman suffocated to death here in a fire that started in a shop-cum-residential building's ground floor where mattresses were stored and spread to upper floors on Thursday morning, police said.

The building is located in the old city on the Arya School road here. There were other members of the family as well but they managed to come out of the building in the nick of time, they said.

All material stored in the shop were gutted in the fire. Other household goods were also damaged and a scooter and a motorcycle were also charred, according to police.

The blaze, brought under control after three hours with the help of six fire tenders, was believed to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, they said.

The woman, identified as Harsh Chawla, was rushed to the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, where she was declared brought dead, they added.

According to her family, they saw a spark coming out of the electric meter installed on the ground floor of the building housing a mattress shop.

The fire spread to the other floors of the building in no time. The family stayed on the upper floors of the building.

Neighbours helped six to seven members of the family to safely cross over to the roofs of the adjoining buildings but the woman, who was said to be taking a bath at the time of the incident, could not be saved, they said.