The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Firecracker explosion toll rises to two; one woman in critical condition

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Sunday, Nov 04, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Firecracker explosion toll rises to two; one woman in critical condition

Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD: The toll rose to two in the fire accident in a house where firecrackers were being made illegally in Shahinayatgunj, with one more boy M. Venkatesh, 10, succumbing to his burns on Saturday. Arvind Raj, 15, a tenth standard student injured in the incident, died on Friday after battling for life for over 12 hours.

The blast occurred on Thursday in an 80-square foot room, where the house owner Narsing Rao was running a firecracker making unit illegally, leaving 11 children and two adults with severe burns. The condition of all the remaining injured, except that of a woman Urmila, 25, who suffered 25 per cent burns, continued to be critical, the Shahinayatgunj police said. Meanwhile, the police reportedly took into custody Rao, his two brothers and two others who supplied the chemical material for making the firecrackers. Rao used to make sparkler-type firecrackers known as ‘supari’. Chemicals like potassium nitrate mixed with sugar, which was used as oxidiser to help the material completely burn, is filled in small pot-shaped boxes made of mud. Rao allegedly employed children to fill this material in the boxes. He would pay Rs. 10 to Rs. 20 to each boy for filling 100 boxes. “But not all the injured children were working in that unit. Arvind Raj went there to buy the ‘suparis’,” Goshamahal ACP K. Sridhar Rao said.

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