Fire kills eight year old girl in Weligama

An eight-year old girl was killed last night when a fire spread into her room in Weligama, police said. 

The eight-year victim was identified as a resident of Weligama police area and the accident occurred when she was in her room last night. 

According to the grandmother and 13 year old sister of the deceased who were inside the house when the incident took place, a fire had erupted in the room and the victim was trapped in her room. Other occupants in the house escaped from the house when the fire started to spread. 

Weligama police told the Times Online that they contacted the Matara Firefighter unit once they were alerted of the incident. Police are currently investigating the reason for the fire. The cause for the fire is yet to be established, police said. 

Meanwhile, police also ruled out the possibility of a gas explosion inside the house since there are no visible damages to the gas cylinder in the kitchen of the house. The residents also said they ran out of gas for weeks in the area. 

The post mortem of the deceased is scheduled to be held following a magistrate inquiry. In a separate incident reported yesterday evening, a hardware shop at Payagala, Kalutara too burned down completely resulting in minor injuries to the shop owner.
 
The owner of the building Rohan Jayantha Banduratne said that the hardware shop in his building which houses construction items was burned down. He said that the Kalutara Firefighters unit rushed to the scene to douse the fire. “My hand received minor injuries due to the fire,” he said.

The officer in charge of Payagala Police said that they suspect the cause of the fire is not a gas leak or an explosion. Police said further investigations are underway to determine the cause of the fire.