A cylinder explosion inside a godown in North-East Delhi’s Gokalpuri left two men dead and at least four injured on Friday afternoon.
The godown, located in a crowded residential colony with two schools in close proximity, appeared to be operating illegally, said a senior police officer, adding investigations in that connection were in progress.
Scores of oxygen cylinders, allegedly supplied to local clinics, were stored at the godown at the time of the blast. Police said they were in the process of registering a case of causing death by negligence against the godown owner.
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The dead have been identified as Ganga Singh, a 32-year-old employee at the godown, and 30-year-old Feroz, an employee of a nearby shop who happened to be inside at the time of the explosion.
The exact cause of the explosion remains unknown. Local residents said they heard a loud sound around 11.45 a.m. on Friday. People almost a kilometre away from the accident spot also claim to have heard the explosion sound. People living close to the accident spot said they even felt their buildings shake.
The impact of the explosion was such that the roof of the single-storey godown was completely blown away and the walls totally collapsed. Mangled iron gates of the godown only remained.
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Cylinder parts, bricks and vestiges of the roof - consisting mostly of iron sheets – were found scattered as far as 100 metres from the accident spot and on top of nearby buildings as high as six floors. Luckily, none of the tin sheets fell on people.
A few nearby buildings too suffered damages.
Two schoolgirls, Saniya (9) and Ayesha (5) were among the four injured in the accident. Both were walking on the street when the broken parts from the godown hit them. They are all out of danger, said police.
More damages were prevented as the local market was closed on Friday. “Otherwise, the street adjoining the godown is a busy one”, said the locals.
The deceased Ganga and his brother were employees at the godown. While Ganga was inside the godown at that time, his brother had left for some work just a couple of minutes before the incident. Ganga was a native of Bihar and Feroz hailed from Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, it was said that godown owner Amit Gupta needed hospitalisation after hearing of the incident as he complained of chest pain.