More than 40 laborers died in New Delhi after a fire engulfed a factory where they worked and slept, making it one of the worst fire tragedies in India’s capital in decades.
The fire broke out early Sunday morning in a dense neighborhood in northern Delhi. The building was used to make paper products and women’s purses, and stored materials including plastic and cardboard.
At least 43 people were killed—many from smoke inhalation as they slept—because the factory lacked basic safety features such as fire alarms, said Atul Garg, director of the Delhi Fire Service.
“People were sleeping inside the building when [the] fire took place,” he said. “Had there been a simple fire-alarm system that would have alerted these people when the fire began, they wouldn’t have died.”
The police have arrested the owner of the property and its manager and registered a case against them under sections of India’s penal codes related to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, said Anil Mittal, a spokesman for the Delhi Police.
The owner and the manager couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday evening. It wasn’t clear whether they had legal representatives.
“My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones. Wishing the injured a quick recovery,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. “Authorities are providing all possible assistance at the site of the tragedy.”
The fire was the capital region’s worst since a movie-theater blaze more than two decades ago.
Almost 60 people died in that fire.
The police have launched an investigation into Sunday’s incident and suspect an electrical fault might have caused the blaze.
The disaster reflects the challenges in a fast-growing and relatively poor economy. Safety regulations are often ignored and workers—often migrants from rural areas—sleep in the factories and construction sites where they work.
The tangle of narrow streets in the most cramped parts of the capital compound the danger.
In neighboring Bangladesh, a 2013 factory-building collapse that killed more than 1,000 people triggered world-wide soul-searching among clothing brands and consumers. The concern was that the competition to deliver affordable fashion to consumers in rich countries had warped the global garment supply chain in a way that was putting developing-economy laborers at risk.
India isn’t as dependent or competitive on garment exports, but those that supply for local demand often work in dangerous conditions.
Police said they didn’t know whether any of the items manufactured in the building that caught fire were intended for export.
Write to Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com
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