NEW DELHI (AP) — A fire swept through a slum in the Indian capital today, destroying hundreds of shanties where residents had collected scrap plastic and rubber for resale.
No one was reported injured or killed, fire department chief A.K. Sharma said.
It took 25 fire trucks and some 70 firefighters about two hours to put out the flames. Black smoke billowed from burning heaps of plastic bottles, tarps, rubber tires and scraps of wood that had been amassed by the slum’s thousands of residents who make a living collecting garbage for resale.
The fire destroyed nearly all of the makeshift slum dwellings that had been clustered next to three hospitals in the historical part of Delhi. The hospitals were protected from the blaze by a brick wall, Sharma said.
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