At least seven people, including two women and a child, were killed while 14 others injured when a fire broke out in chemical drums stored in the stilt area of a four-storeyed building in Hyderabad on Monday morning, police said.

Deputy commissioner of police (Central Zone) M Venkateshwarlu told reporters that the incident happened in the residential area of Bazarghat near Nampally at around 9:30am.

“According to locals, it began as a small fire in the stilt area and soon spread to the entire area. We received a call at around 9:38am and we rushed to the spot along with five fire tenders to take up rescue operations,” he said.

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An alert was also sounded to the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), which sent two teams to take part in the rescue operations.

“We brought the fire under control within an hour and rescued, in all, 21 persons trapped in the building and rushed them to the Osmania General Hospital,” Venkateshwarlu said.

He said eight of the persons who were brought out of the building were unconscious.

“According to the information received from the hospital, seven of them died – some due to burn injuries and others due to asphyxiation,” the DCP said.

Preliminary inquiries at the spot revealed that the fire broke out while repairing a car in the stilt floor, where several drums storing a chemical was also stored.

“It is an inflammable chemical stored in fibre-plastic manufacturing. How the sparks erupted and how the chemical caught fire is yet to be ascertained,” the DCP said.

He said there was no permission for storing such chemicals.

“It is a dense residential area. They should not store any such hazardous chemicals. But it is not possible to take action unless we get a complaint,” Venkateshwarlu said.