Disaster: An automobile workshop in Olakha was gutted in a fire that started around 8:30pm on September 20.

Since it was a Sunday and a day off for the workers of Autga automobile workshop, there was no one at the time of the fire, its owner Kunzang said.

There were about three rooms inside where vehicle spare parts were stored but he said the maximum damage was done in the main store.

Kunzang said vehicle spare parts worth more than Nu 7M were in the store and about 80 percent were burnt in the fire.

He said that a 37-year-old woman who runs a canteen above the workshop informed him of the fire and by the time he reached the scene, the fire had been contained.

“Usually we keep vehicles inside the workshop but I am glad that there were no vehicles when the incident happened,” Kunzang said.

Although the cause of the fire is not yet known, police suspect electric short circuit.

The canteen owner said she heard a crackling sound and smelled something burning but did not think suspect it to be a fire.

She was alone with her seven-year-old son when somebody knocked at her door. Fearing it to be some miscreants, she did not open the door. “I knew of the fire only when a man broke down the door,” she said.

Dechen Tshomo

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