Secunderabad inferno: Here are minute-to-minute details of the fire accident

Hyderabad: 9:30: A major fire broke out at Ruby Pride Luxury Hotel in Secunderabad. It was followed by an explosion in an e-bike showroom located on the ground floor of the building

9:35: Fire Department gets a call

9:37: The Fire Department officers reach the spot

The people trapped inside

The building comprised five floors with 28 rooms in the hotel. There were 25 occupants in the hotel when the blaze engulfed the building.

Eight persons died in the incident. The deceased have been identified as Alladi Harish from Vijayawada, Veerender Kumar Devakar, a businessman from Delhi, Seetha Raman, a businessman from Chennai, Balaji, an auditor from Chennai, Rajeev Maik from Delhi, and Sandeep Malik from Delhi. Two of the deceased- one male and one female-- are yet to be identified.

Nine persons have been injured and are undergoing treatment in the Yashoda Hospital and Gandhi hospital. One injured by the name Jayanth from Bangalore is critical and is admitted to ICU at Apollo hospital. The others injured have been identified as K V Santhosh from Hyderabad, Deba Shish Gupta from Kolkata, B Yogitha from Madhapur, KK Keshavan from Chennai, Deepak Yadav from Gurgaon, Umesh Kumar Acharya from Kolkata, Manmohan Khanna from Hyderabad, and Rajesh Jagdish Chabra from Gujarat.

Cause of the fire?

The reason for the fire is yet to be ascertained. But the police suspect that either an electric bike or a generator placed in the Ruby Motors showroom exploded causing the fire.

Case registered?

One of the injured persons Manmohan Khanna has formally lodged a police complaint. A case has been registered against the owner of Ruby Motors under Section 304 Part II, 324 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 9 b of the Explosives Act, 1884.

Telangana Fire Safety Director General Sanjay Kumar said that the deaths happened due to people inhaling smoke and not because of the fire or the injuries or due to jumping off from the building.

Meanwhile, electric scooter company Gemopai shared their grief on Twitter. "It is a very unfortuante incident and we are deeply saddened by the loss of lives. Our teams, from Telangana and Delhi have rushed to the incident site and are investigating the root cause of fire. We are cooperating and working with the local authorities and awaiting a report on the same," they wrote.