Dozen gas cylinders explode after fire in Pune, no casualties

Pune: At least a dozen cooking gas cylinders exploded following a blaze in a construction workers colony in the Vimannagar area of the city here on Wednesday afternoon, officials said, adding there were no casualties in the incident.

According to police, at around 2 pm, a minor fire broke out in one of the shanties of the construction workers near the upcoming Rohan Mithila complex, and quickly spread to the surrounding dwellings.

The workers and their panicked families immediately rushed out of the vicinity, and suddenly there were a series of deafening explosions which rocked the area.

As a Pune Fire Brigade team with three fire-tenders and local police teams rushed there, they found at least 100 cylinders stored near the workers’ homes in a congested area.

As per preliminary estimates, owing to the heat of the fire, some of the gas cylinders exploded, and some were ablaze and were seen thrown several metres in the air before falling down.

The fire brigade quickly launched cooling operations with water jets on the remaining cylinders to prevent them from bursting, and cordoned off the area.

It was not immediately clear how so many gas cylinders were stored in a haphazard manner in the congested area or who they belong to, whether they were kept illegally or not, and further investigations are underway.

Meanwhile, as several dozen of the labourers and their families have lost shanties with all their belongings, arrangements are being made to provide them alternative shelters in the ongoing winter chills as night temperatures drop to 12 degrees Celsius.