Four people including a child were reported dead while at least 15 were others injured in in a mysterious explosion at Residency Road area of Jammu on Monday evening.
Earlier local news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) had reported that a major rescue operation has been launched by authorities after the explosion at Residency Road in Jammu.
The death toll may increase further as the rescue operation is still underway, PTI quoted police officials as saying.
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A fire broke out apparently due to a short circuit which then led to LPG cylinders exploding.
“The flames engulfed the entire building and some of the LPG cylinders kept inside exploded,” said Senior Superintendent of Police, Jammu, Chandan Kohli.
The injured have been hospitalised. Residents of the building were mostly workers from Assam.
Jammu & Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha said an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh each would be given to the families of the deceased.
“Deeply saddened by the loss of lives due to LPG cylinder blast at a scrap shop in Jammu. My condolences to the bereaved families and prayers for speedy recovery of the injured. Directed the district administration to provide all the necessary assistance,” Office of LG J&K tweeted.
Additional Director General of Police, Jammu, Mukesh Singh also rushed to the spot to supervise the rescue operation.
“Over a dozen families were living in the building. The fire spread very fast, many of the residents could not escape immediately,” PTI quoted a building resident Anwar Hussain as saying.
Another survivor, Yasmeena Khatoon, said the building residents lost everything in the fire.
“We could not retrieve anything and tried to flee the raging fire,” she said. She also said that many of her relatives were either injured or missing after the incident.
