MADHYA PRADESH: At least 82 people were killed and about 150 injured when an explosion ripped through a packed restaurant near a bus stop in Madhya Pradesh’s Jhabua district on Saturday.
The reason for the blast was not immediately clear but sources said it may have been triggered by gelatine sticks, used for mining, that were stored along with LPG cylinders in a nearby home.
The blast occurred in the town of Petlawad at around 8:30am when dozens of office workers and schoolchildren were having breakfast at the restaurant. “People were thrown away like pebbles in the air due to the explosion,” said a witness.
The death toll is likely to rise as the intensity of the blast reduced three houses and the restaurant to rubble, leaving several people trapped in the debris. Television footage showed scores of people and rescue workers using their bare hands to shift mangled heaps of steel and concrete of the ruined buildings while police cordoned off the area. Bodies covered in dust and ash lay in the streets alongside the twisted wreckage of burned vehicles.
A district police official, Anurag Mishra, cited the restaurant’s proximity to a busy bus stand as a reason for the high number of casualties.
