NEW DELHI, 11 April 2006 — More than 100 people were killed yesterday when a fire swept through large tents packed with shoppers at a trade fair in north India, police said.
“More than 100 people are dead,” Rajiv Sabharwal, police chief of Meerut, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of New Delhi, told reporters.
“The fire broke out at around 4 p.m. and 45 fire tenders from Delhi and nearby districts of Uttar Pradesh have been rushed to Meerut,” Meerut’s Deputy Inspector General of Police Raj Kumar Vishwakarma said.
Witnesses said bodies were charred beyond recognition and had been scattered throughout the stalls of the sprawling exhibition ground.
Badly burned bodies of men, women and children had been dumped at the back of trucks, police Inspector Rakesh Tomar said, predicting the death toll could rise much higher. Television footage showed blackened steel frames were all that remained of the air-conditioned tents that had been erected at the fair.
Plumes of thick black smoke billowed into the air as rescue workers ferried casualties to Meerut district hospital.
“We have so far removed 45 bodies to the mortuary,” Vishwakarma told Star News television by telephone.
