BENGALURU: A 22-year-old worker died while three others, including a woman, sustained injuries when an explosion occurred due to an LPG leak at Kadugodi near Whitefield. A ground-plus-one storey building collapsed due to the impact. The police said Khalid Khan, the building owner was running a gas refilling shop on the ground floor and had rented out the first floor to a family.
The deceased has been identified as Syed Afsar alias Pasha, a resident of Kadugodi. The injured has been identified as Sulthana Iliyas (25), her son Syed Zahil, (3), and another worker Saleem Pasha, (24), who hails from West Bengal. The injured are recovering in Vydehi hospital in Whitefield.
A senior police officer said that the incident occurred around 10 am in Bapuji Circle. Afsar and Pradeep were refilling a cylinder when it exploded due to their negligence. The building collapsed due to the impact. While Afsar and Saleem were stuck under the debris on the ground floor, Sulthana and her son were stuck on the first floor. The locals, however, tried to rescue the family of Sulthana with the help of fire and emergency personnel and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). Two of the neigbouring houses were also damaged due to the impact.
Manjunath H V, a private company employee, who noticed the mishap, imme diately alerted fire and emergency services. Other residents who saw the fire, started screaming. The fire personnel after rescuing the victims, rushed them to a nearby hospital where Afsar succumbed to severe head injuries.
“Khalid, who also runs BAK Cycle Mart in the same premise, had employed Afsar, Saleem and Pradeep four years ago. He had a licence, but however, they never took safety measures while refilling the gas. He was at his residence, and came to know about the incident when police rushed to the spot. He was taken into custody for interrogation and further action will be taken against him for the negligence. We are also verifying the documents of a valid license for refilling LPG”, the investigation officer said.
A senior officer from NDRF said that, “Rescue team headed by a commanders discussed with the local administration about the possibilities to rescue the trapped victim. There were 60 cylinders kept inside the debris of the collapsed building, out of which a few were damaged and started leaking due to the explosion.
Our team commander placed an air ventilator to minimise the effect and then started removing the debris. Our team have identified that the lower portion of the victim’s body had come under the debris.
After rigorous work by our team, they succeeded in removing the debris and rescuing the victim. Further, the victim was handed over to the medical team at 4.30 pm. After doing a thorough dog squad search and technical search, our team has confirmed that nobody was trapped inside the debris and called off the operation at 5.00 pm.”
Saleem was rescued after four hours
“Saleem, who had come to the city for work, was stuck under debris for more than four hours, while fire officials rescued Sulthana and her son within few minutes. Saleem also sustained burn injuries as he was standing next to Afsar while refilling the cylinder. He is not able to speak and has been shifted to ICU for
further treatment,”Kadugodi police said.