Officials said the devastating fire left 3,500 people homeless and completely gutted thickly-populated Gachhirampara-Naisingpara Bru refugee camp in north Tripura, about 185km from Agartala and 17km from Mizoram's Kanchanpur subdivision.
The camp was heavily-crowded and had virtually no water source in the dry hilly region.
The fire is suspected to have begun from a kitchen and immediately engulfed the series of bamboo-made-thatched huts. Fire fighters from all adjoining subdivisions rushed to the spot but could not do much in absence of water. "The fire went beyond control as the area is dry and windy.
The fire service vehicles had to rush back to far off places for water and then return to the camp that could not help douse the flames," said fire service DG Amitabha Kar.
"It was virtually hell fire of biblical proportion. The flames kept on devouring huts after huts, acrid smoke billowed up and then covered the area. And then there was stench of burnt human flesh," said local resident Rjendra Reang over the phone. "It was a nightmare coming true even as fire service, police, camp inmates and locals stood helpless in absence of water." He said a minimum of 500 huts were completely reduced to ashes."Even chicken and pigs could not escape the fire. Deaths could have been many more had the youth not gone for jhum (shifting) cultivation." He said so many deaths in a fire incident in the region is unheard of.
Officials said all houses and huts were destroyed in about 1km radius. "We have recovered 16 charred bodies. But more bodies could be buried under the debris. Recovery operations are being carried out," said DIG (operations) Nepal Chandra Das. North Tripura district magistrate Soumya Gupta along with senior district officials rushed to the camp to oversee rescue and relief operations.
Kanchanpur SDM Dilip Chakma said the toll was likely to rise as the situation was virtually beyond control.
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