Five persons, including a four-year-old girl, were killed and four others injured when an LPG cylinder exploded on Wednesday morning in a residential complex on Mettukadai Street in Attayampatti Village, nearly 25 km from Salem. Accordign to police, the explosion occurred around 6.10 a.m. in one of the nine apartment complexes, damaging three flats on the first floor of the building. Ayesha (38), her son Siddique (17), their neighbour A. Deverajan (50), his wife Malliga (45) and their grand daughter Deepadharshini (4) were killed in the explosion due to a gas leak from the cylinder in Devarajan's house. Ayesha, Siddique and Devarajan died on the spot. Malliga and the child died at the hospital.
The injured are: Ayesha’s husband Ahmedullah (45), their son Aasif (13), daughter Sahitha (14), Devarajan’s son Kumar (25), daughter Sandhya (23) and Gurubaran (25) and his wife Meenakshi (22) who were staying in the adjacent flat. The roof of the apartments of Ayesha and Devarajan collapsed and a portion of the roof collapsed in Gurubaran’s flat. The explosion left cracks on the walls of other houses on the first floor.
“The child (Deepadarshini) was flung about 50 feet away from the house in the explosion. She was lying on the ground floor under a pile of debris,” said J. Yogaraj, who was among the first few to rescue the injured victims.
