Chennai’s arterial GN Chetty Road witnessed slow vehicular movement on a busy Monday morning as fire engulfed two cars parked near the Jain temple. No injuries were reported.
The incident took place at around 11 am on Monday, when a Hyundai i10 and a Maruti Suzuki S-Cross that were parked on the side of the road suddenly caught fire. According to the police, the i10 was the first car to catch fire. “The car was parked on the side of the road since last night by its owner as there was some fault in its engine. This morning when a mechanic opened the bonnet to check the engine of the car, it sparked and caused a fire, which engulfed the vehicle. The flames also spread to the S-Cross, which was parked nearby,” a police officer from Teynampet station told TNM. Both the cars were reduced to its skeletal remains by the fire, he added.
A fire engine was rushed to the spot to douse the fire. “Since the cars were at the side of the road, the flames did not disrupt traffic. However, we had to ensure that the other vehicles which pass the spot do so without any risk. So we were regulating traffic slowly,” the officer added.
While the i10 belongs to Murugan, a businessman from Saligramam, the S-Cross belongs to a bank employee. Teynampet police have registered an FIR and are investigating the cause of the fire.
This is not the first time that a car has caught fire. In March, a car travelling to the Mahashivaratri celebrations in Isha Yoga Centre, Coimbatore, caught fire in the middle of a busy highway at night. Weeks before that, a major fire broke out in a car parking opposite to Sri Ramachandra Hospital in Chennai’s Porur. In another incident in January, an Uber cab went up in flames in Chennai’ TTK Road. Last December, a car which was heading to the Chennai airport caught fire on a flyover near the airport, bringing traffic to a standstill in the area. None of the incidents led to any casualties.