Engines took more than an hour to reach Chotojalenga; victims demand a fire station near University

Remember the last Saturday incident? When fire gutted the 1st floor of a commercial building at Silchar’s Ambikapatty point. Well, that night another similar incident happened at Chotojalenga village, but unlike the first case which got so much attention, latter was not so lucky to receive the fire department’s immediate help. Result of which the whole house has burnt to ashes.

Incident happened late night of 28th September, when a complete house was gutted in fire at Chotojalenga pt – II, Sarbantilla village. Luckily no causalities happened but lakhs of property got burnt to ashes. Documents, jewellery, money along with other electrical appliances, all turned to dark smoke. It is speculated that a short-circuit is the possible root of the devastating fire.

Talking to Barak Bulletin, a member of the victim’s family said, they were busy in family chit-chat when suddenly some members noticed flames coming out from one of the room. “Other members of the family started screaming following which many neighbours came running and tried to douse the fire collectively. I didn’t have the number of Fire department so I called up my friends to get the number. We then called the fire department but they took more than 1 hour to reach the spot. By then the house was completely burnt,” said the member on condition of anonymity.

“What happened with us was unfortunate, but we don’t want other families of this village to suffer the same and therefore we are demanding a permanent fire station here at Assam University area. Tarapur is at very large distance from here and it takes minimum of 1 hour to reach our location even it is an emergency vehicle,” the family member added.