#TenNews #Update: Noida Slum Fire Leaves Hundreds Homeless, Their Life Savings And IDs Reduced To Ashes

Air filled with smell of burnt rice and rubber, Abul Malik squats amid the remains of his hut and rummages through his blackened belongings. He finds something under the carcass of his cooler, pulls out a sooty tin can and takes a look inside. “Charred coins,” he says and lifts the can up to show its contents. “Notes have become ash.”

Everything that Malik possessed, including Rs 25,600 saved over the course of three months for his sister’s wedding, was lost in the fire that brought down his basti in the wee hours of Friday. The sun wasn’t out but the slum in Sarfabad village in Sector 73, Noida, burned bright as day, the locals said. Nothing was spared. Even the coins in Malik’s tin can are unusable. “I can’t even buy a cup of tea with these,” he rues, throwing the can down.