MUMBAI (Reuters) -Multiple cooking gas cylinders in a truck caught fire and exploded on Monday in Mumbai’s biggest slum of Dharavi, where hundreds of thousands live in crowded, squalid conditions, local authorities said.
The fire was confined to the truck and no injuries were reported, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the city’s civic body, said in a statement, adding that fire services and ambulances had been pressed into action.
Witnesses said they heard multiple blasts and saw huge, billowing fumes and smoke rising from an area near the Dharavi Bus depot.
Local news channels showed people crowding on the streets close to the incident to watch the fumes as fire engines tried to douse the flames emerging from the site.
The Dharavi slum, about three-quarters of the size of New York’s Central Park, featured in Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning 2008 movie “Slumdog Millionaire”.
With open sewers and shared toilets, close to Mumbai’s airport, Dharavi is one of Asia’s largest slums, spanning an area of 240 hectare (594 acre).
(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
