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Three killed in Jaipur LPG station fire

– PHOTO: PTI

Towering inferno: Fire-fighters trying to douse the fire at a LPG filling station in Jaipur on Sunday.

JAIPUR: Three persons were killed and a dozen others injured when a major fire broke out in the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) filling station at a petrol pump at Shastri Nagar here late on Saturday night. The fire engulfed a gas tanker, an electricity transformer and three cars and spread to a nearby multi-storey apartment building.

Six of the injured were admitted to Sawai Man Singh Hospital, where one person was stated to be in a serious condition. About three dozen civil and Army fire tenders pressed into service worked till early morning to douse the fire, while the people residing in the adjacent locality were evacuated to safety.

Police sources said the fire broke out around midnight due to the leakage of LPG from a nozzle of a gas tanker which was filling the underground tanks of the petrol outlet.

Some welding work was reportedly underway near the underground tanks when the gas filling plant suddenly caught fire.

The abrupt blaze led to several blasts in the LPG tanks, the impact of which was felt in the entire Shastri Nagar residential area up to a distance of three kilometres. A large number of people vacated their houses as the fire spread to nearby houses and burnt trees and damaged electricity poles and wires.

According to the preliminary estimates of the owners of the Indian Oil Corporation petrol pump, about 12 to 15 tonnes of fuel went up in flames with the fire raging for six hours throughout the night intervening Saturday and Sunday.

The deceased have been identified as Pooran, a bystander who was burnt alive on the spot, and Mohammed Kaleem, driver of the gas tanker, and Ramdhan, an employee of the petrol pump, who succumbed to their injuries in SMS Hospital.

The Rajasthan Government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident and sanctioned an ex-gratia assistance of Rs.2 lakh to the next of kin of each deceased, Rs.50,000 each to those seriously injured and Rs.25,000 each to the injured.

While Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje held a high-level meeting of police and administrative officers to review the situation, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari visited the injured in SMS Hospital.

Mr. Tiwari said the Additional District Magistrate (Jaipur North) would conduct the inquiry into the incident.

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