Monday, Aug 04, 2003
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By Manas Dasgupta
Rescue operations in full swing after three buildings collapsed in Surat on Sunday. The cause of the accident, in which over 30 persons were killed and several injured, was the explosion of gas cylinders. — AP
Official sources here admitted that the toll could go up as more bodies could be trapped under the debris and as the condition of many of the injured was critical. (Fire brigade sources in Surat said that 36 bodies had so far been pulled out of the rubble.) The authorities ruled out sabotage and maintained that it was accidental, probably caused by the bursting of some gas cylinders or boilers stored on the ground floor of the building housing an industrial unit to manufacture equipment for the diamond cutting and polishing industry. Two adjacent low-rise residential buildings partly collapsed, trapping people. The building housing the industrial unit was reduced to rubble. People in the neighbourhood said they heard a loud explosion around 3.30 a.m. followed by a series of smaller explosions. Then the buildings collapsed. The explosions could be heard 4 km away. At least 70 persons, all labourers employed in diamond cutting and polishing units and mostly from the Saurashtra region of the State, lived in dormitories on the third floor. The second floor had a dining hall and living quarters where cooking gas connections had been provided. The industrial unit worked round-the-clock and the manufacture of some of the diamond cutting equipment required very high temperature. The boilers or the furnaces were heated either by electricity or gas, for which a large number of industrial gas cylinders were stored. The authorities believe that extreme heat could have caused the explosion of the gas cylinders and the cascading effect caused the bursting of cylinders on the upper floors. Most of the labourers lived in pitiable conditions as seen from the fact that 70 persons lived in one or two small "dormitories.'' Officials from the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Ahmedabad have rushed to Surat to ascertain the exact cause of the explosion. The Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, announced a compensation of Rs. 50,000 for the families of each of those killed. The Union Rural Development Minister, Kashiram Rana, who hails from Surat, visited the site said that Rs. 25,000 would be given to the victim's families from the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.
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