Residents and motorists were in for a surprise when fire erupted from the ground in front of Navaneeta Apartment on A N Krishna Rao Road, near Sajjan Rao Circle, on Saturday around 2 pm.
Shocked residents of the apartment made efforts to douse flames by pouring sand, without much success. They made frantic efforts to contact the Fire and Emergency Service personnel, but failed to get response from them.
In the meantime, police on patrol arrived on the scene and spoke to their higher-ups. Even amid confusion on how to tackle the fire, the BWSSB officials arrived and made efforts to trace the contractor who had laid water pileline on Friday.
Much to the relief of the onlookers, the fire suddenly got extinguished. Minutes later, smoke willowed out from the ground a few metres away from the place where the fire had begun, causing concern. Luckily, it died within a few seconds.
Residents claimed that the workers might have left the gas cylinder which was used for work, at the spot.
Police suspected that the fire might have started from an underground electric cable. A 11 kv high tension wire has been laid beneath the ground. A project was taken up to lay a water pipeline.
The BESCOM officers told the police that water leaked from the pipeline and came in contact with the high tension wire triggering flames.
The flames immediately stopped the moment electricity was disconnected to the high tension wire, the police added.
A similar incident had taken place recently in KG Nagar. An explosion was heard after water leaked from pipeline and came in contact with the live wire beneath.
Flames were also witnessed for a while, the police said.