Three members of a family were burnt alive while two others were seriously injured in a blaze that engulfed their house at Motihari in East Champaran district of Bihar on Saturday.

The incident occurred in the morning when the fire broke out at the two-storeyed house of one Subodh Pandit. The flames engulfed the building within minutes.

The fire seemed to have started because of an electric short circuit at a shop on the ground floor where cotton bales were stored. It was closed at the time of the incident. Alert neighbours sounded an alarm and tried to rescue the people trapped in the house.

Subodh jumped from the terrace of the house to another adjacent house and managed to save himself despite having suffered burn injuries. The local people broke a wall of his house and pulled out his wife, who also had suffered fire injuries.

The deceased have been identified as Subodh’s son Roshan Pandit, 28, daughter-in-law Kavita Devi, 24, and daughter Shalu Pandit, 15.

Firefighters rushed to the place of occurrence and managed to douse the flames in around four hours.

“The situation turned worse because the staircase to the first floor where the entire family was trapped, was completely engulfed in the fire. It prevented them from escaping,” a fire brigade official said.

The injured have been admitted to a private hospital for treatment.