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Building blaze kills nine in India's software hub

Tuesday, February 23, 2010
BANGALORE: At least nine people were killed, some as they jumped from windows, when flames engulfed a multi-storey building Tuesday in India's software capital of Bangalore, fire officials said.

Fifty others were injured, some critically, in the blaze which broke out in the seven-storey Carlton Towers in the afternoon, Bangalore city's fire chief D.G. Chengappa told a foreign news agency.

"The dead include three women," Chengappa said.

Some of the victims died after leaping from upper stories of the building, the officer said, and added that others died of smoke inhalation.

People trapped in the fire smashed windows for fresh air as smoke billowed through the upscale office complex which housed restaurants and several small software companies.

Some office workers fled the building by sliding down makeshift ropes.

The blaze was doused after several hours.

Officials could give no immediate reason for the fire but some television networks blamed it on an electrical short-circuit in the building.

Bangalore in southern India is the capital of the country's flourishing software sector and the centre for the aeronautical and space industry.

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