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Domestic
gas cylinder explosions are common in India, where safety standards are
relatively poor ©Diptendu Dutta (AFP)
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At least 20 people were
killed when a gas cylinder exploded in a restaurant in central India early
Saturday, while 25 people were known to have been injured, a police official
said. The
explosion occurred at around 8:30 am local time (0300 GMT) at the restaurant in
Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh state as dozens of office workers and
schoolchildren were having breakfast, senior district police official Seema
Alava said.
"As
of now, 20 people are confirmed dead. But this number could rise. Rescue
efforts are on to find anyone who could be trapped inside (the debris),"
Alava, additional police superintendent for Jhabua, told AFP from the site by
phone.
AFP report continues:
"The
restaurant was in a tightly packed locality and a lot of people were here
having breakfast, that is why the casualties are so high," she said,
adding that about 25 injured people were rushed to a nearby hospital.
Alava
said the intensity of the blast knocked down a neighbouring building and
damaged several others. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.
Television
footage showed scores of people and rescue workers using their bare hands to
shift mangled heaps of steel and concrete of the crumbled buildings while
police cordoned off the area.
Another
official from the district police control room, Anurag Mishra, cited the
restaurant's proximity to a busy bus stand for the high number of casualties.
Domestic
gas cylinder explosions are common in India, where safety standards are
relatively poor.
And though reports of fatal
accidents from cylinder blasts are frequent, mass casualties are unusual.
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