According to official sources, at least nine people died and twenty were injured in a fire caused by a gas cylinder in a train carriage in southern India this Saturday. In a country prone to rail crashes, the crash that killed nearly 300 people in June is very recent.
An official at Madurai railway station in the southern state of Tamil Nadu “reported a fire in a private car at 5:15 a.m. local time (11:45 GMT on Friday)” and that the fire had been extinguished for two hours. Later, the manager of the railway department where the event took place said in a statement.
Tamil Nadu Finance Minister P. Moorthy, in statements to the media reported by the Indian Express newspaper, said that “passengers had locked the private car from the inside for their security, were using a stove to make tea and this caused the explosion nine.” People died.
Indian Railways allows whole car rentals, but “passengers are not allowed to bring flammable materials such as gas cylinders,” rail officials said. The deceased, who the minister said was from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, had hired the car to travel to southern India on a religious trip.
The rest of the wagons were not affected. The Southern Railway did not provide details on the number of people who were in the compartment at the time of the fire, but said many managed to get out of the compartment. Authorities told the Indian Press Trust news agency that another 20 people were injured and taken to hospital.
With information from agencies
