Chennai: At least 12 huts at the seaside end of Dooming Kuppam near Santhome were burnt down in a fire in the early hours of Saturday.
A thick cloud of dark fumes engulfed the area. No casualties were reported in the incident.
Police said the fire broke out from one of the huts in the Kuppam and spread quickly to other huts. Initial estimates have put the damage due to loss of property at about Rs 45,000.
According to personnel of the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services, the fire broke out at 4 am on Saturday and three fire tenders from Triplicane, Teynampet and Mylapore were pressed into service. They battled for around one an half hour to bring the fire under control.
While people in the area attributed a short circuit in the transformer as a reason for the fire, investigations by the police also led to the same conclusion.
Police said since most of the occupants were asleep in the open on the beach sands, due to stiff summer nights inside huts, the accident thankfully did not cause any loss of lives.Police said on Friday, the power supply was interrupted for about 10 times in the area.
This could have resulted in the transformer malfunctioning and the fire starting as a result. A case has been registered at the Pattinapakkam police station and investigations are on.
The EB officials said the fire was the result of a transformer fault and they fixed the transformer within three hours.
Some residents say many huts draw power illegally from one household that has a legal power connection and that this is common across the kuppam and these illegal, overloaded lines are the cause of mishaps here. Meanwhile, fisheries minister D.Jayakumar inspected the mishap site on Saturday morning. He expressed his concern and sympathy towards the residents.
Taking to the press, the minister said these people cant be relocated to Kannagi Nagar or Thideer Nagar since their livelihood depends on the shores of Pattinapakkam. The government will swiftly convert all huts into multi-storey slum tenements to put an end to recurrent fires, he added.
