JEYPORE: A day after a tanker carrying LPG gas overturned near Deoghat village under Jeypore Sadar police limits, the villagers were stopped by the administration from cremating a woman's body anticipating fire outbreak on Tuesday.
According to sources, the tanker, with 17 tonne gas, overturned on Monday afternoon. Soon after, police and fire service personnel blocked the Jeypore-Koraput link road where the accident occurred and arrangements were made to empty the tanker. Police snapped mobile networks and power supply besides stopping movement of vehicles on the route to avert any untoward incident. The entire operation took over five hours. But, the entire quantity of gas could not be emptied.
Again, on Tuesday, LPG operators and a technical team from Visakhapatnam reached the spot and attempted to transfer the gas through a pipeline to another tanker. But as the mission failed, operators decided to empty the gas into the air. As a safety measure, the district administration banned use of fire in the peripheral areas of Deoghat.
Even as the gas was being emptied, a group of villagers were preparing to cremate the body of one Moina Jani of Gadva Mandi village in Deoghat. On learning about the preparations, the administration asked the villagers to stop the process.
The villagers left the body at the funeral ground and staged a protest. Senior police officials rushed to spot and pacified the villagers assuring to allow the cremation soon after evacuation of LPG gas.
The movement of traffic was disrupted for nearly six hours as the process was going on. On Monday too, the traffic was stopped for nearly five hours.
The administration has, however, issued a notice asking villagers to follow caution for a couple of days.