A 49-year-old radiologist and his two children died after a fire broke out apparently due to an electric short-circuit in their residence in Renigunta near Tirupati in the early hours of Sunday, September 25, police said. However, his wife, also a doctor, and mother-in-law escaped unhurt in the incident, police said. Upon receiving information, police and fire services personnel rushed to the spot, and brought the fire under control. They removed the charred body of Dr Ravishankar Reddy from the second floor of the building. The children -- an 11-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son -- panicked after thick smoke emanated from the ground floor and bolted themselves in a bathroom resulting in their suffocation, police said.
An electric short circuit in the kitchen and a subsequent cooking gas cylinder leak there bolstered the fire that spread quickly and engulfed the entire first floor adorned with wooden furniture, police said. The doctors' family was running an outpatient clinic on the ground floor of their three-storied building, police further said. While the kids’ mother Dr Ananta Lakshmi and grandmother Rama Subbamma were rescued, the two children died while undergoing treatment.
Earlier on September 21, three persons, including a father-son duo, suffocated to death in a fire accident in the neighbouring Chittoor district. The fire broke out in a two-storied house on Rangachari street in Chittoor, where 65-year-old Bhaskar Naidu was operating a paper plates manufacturing unit. Two fire tenders rushed to the spot and doused the flames. However, by the time they entered the house, Bhaskar, his son Dilli Babu (35), and their neighbour Balaji (25) were found in an unconscious state. They were shifted to a hospital but declared dead on arrival. In that incident too, police said they suspect that a short circuit led to the fire. The three men were found in an unconscious state in the bathrooms, possibly having confined themselves there to stay away from the fire, a police official said.