PUNE:
At least 10 women workers were killed and nine injured when a powerful explosion
ripped through a small-scale celluloid container manufacturing unit at Landewadi
in the MIDC Bhosari estate, S-Block, late Wednesday afternoon.
Prima facie, the police
suspect it to be a case of cylinder explosion, which resulted in fire and heavy
smoke. The exact cause of the blaze was being ascertained.
While the bodies of four
victims were recovered in a completely charred condition from the accident site,
the other six victims, who were holed up in a bathroom in their attempt to avoid
the blaze, died of suffocation.
The manufacturing unit, Sai
Industries, is part of a relatively dense cluster of small scale units. It
supplies celluloid containers to the ammunition factory, said deputy
commissioner of police (zone III) Mahesh Patil said at the accident site.
Among the nine injured, who
were admitted to the Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital (YCMH), the condition
of one victim, who suffered a head injury, was stated to be critical.
Patil said that 28 workers,
including 23 women, were attending various jobs inside the unit when the
explosion happened.
As a
spontaneous reaction late in the evening, irate residents from Landewadi and
adjoining localities gathered at the accident site and indulged in sloganeering
against the police and the fire brigade.
They alleged that the fire
brigade reached the spot around 4.30 pm whereas the blast occurred sometime
between 3.30 and 4 pm. Similarly, they alleged that the police too reached the
site around 5 pm.
A section of
protestors demanded access to the unit on suspicion that some more victims may
have lost their lives. Senior police officials were working on defusing the
tension.
The unit is located
close to settlements like Shantinagar, Ambedkarnagar and Landewadi, which
account for over 3,000 settlers, mostly from other parts of the state and even
outside Maharashtra.
Chaos and
panic reigned supreme for quite some time after the deafening explosion had
people from the adjoining units rush outside their homes to check what had
happened.
It took a while for
them to realise the gravity of the tragedy as they struggled in vain to get past
the thick cover of smoke billowing out of the ground-plus two-storey structure.
Ram Karekar, a young
eyewitness, said, "All we could hear in the initial few minutes was some women
screaming and people running helter-skelter. A part of the unit was engulfed by
the blaze and heavy smoke."
A
couple of women workers jumped from the second floor to escape the fire, Karekar
said, adding that one of these women suffered head
injury.
Riyaz Tamboli, who
works in a neighbouring unit, said people feared that the fire may spread to
other units. "There was total chaos," he added.
Rescuers were able to move in
after the fire brigade vehicles reached the site along with the fire-fighting
paraphernalia. "We removed at least six victims who had shut themselves inside a
bathroom," said Karekar. "All these victims appeared to be in a state of
unconsciousness owing to suffocation," he said.
For a teenaged canteen boy, it
was a close shave as he was about to enter the manufacturing unit. The fact that
he experienced the blast effect first-hand, drove him to a state of shock. All
he could say was, "I came here only a few days back".