Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
By Dheeraj Fartode The invention of fire was a major breakthrough in the development of civilization. This is why the primitive people used to worship fire as manifestation of God. So long as fire is under control, it cooks our food and provides warmth in the chilly winter. Destroyed ship 'Fort Stikine' at Victoria Docks But the other side of the story is different. If fire is left untackled an if it is allowed to spread beyond control, it causes much hazard by devastating lives and properties. Keeping fire under control, therefore, has been the primary task of mankind to avoid its devastating effects. the greatest fire tragedy in India was the Bombay Docks explosion occurred on April 14, 1944 in a ship called ‘Fort Stikine’ in the Victoria Docks of Bombay (now Mumbai). The ship was carrying a mixed cargo of 9,000 bales of cotton, 1,400 ton of explosives, ammunition, oil barrels, timber scrap iron and 124 gold bars. At Karachi ship took bales of cotton. Prior to ...