What Caused the MP Firecracker Factory Blast That Killed 3 and Injured Several?

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least three workers died and over a dozen were injured in an explosion at a firecracker unit in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas district on Thursday (May 14). The blast took place around 11 am in a 25-by-25-foot room where 15 to 20 workers handled gunpowder-related work at the factory located on the Agra-Mumbai national highway.One of the workers at the firecracker factory destroyed in an explosion in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas district on Thursday recounted the screams of his brother and the numbing pain of pulling him out from the debris in a burnt condition, according to a PTI report.

What Could Have Caused The Fire?

Bihar native Naveen Kumar alleged that the factory lacked adequate fire safety arrangements. Many workers from his native state were brought to the unit on a monthly salary of Rs 14,000 after being told they would only perform "dust-related work".Kumar's brother, Niranjan, is among the three migrant workers admitted to the Government Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital in Indore.It was a desperate search for his younger brother amid smoke, screams, and panic, Kumar told PTI at the site, where cement blocks from the room lay shattered across the premises, while iron sheets from the roof were blown apart. Fire extinguishers remained scattered on the ground."Some workers and I were working outside the room. After the blast, I heard my brother screaming and pulled him out in a burnt condition, but the labour contractor and factory management personnel did not help us. The workers were resting after breakfast but were called in to work by the factory management," he said.Giving extreme heat as a possible cause of the blast, Kumar said water sprinkling inside the gunpowder storage room did not take place on time despite repeated complaints by workers.

Heatwave in Madhya Pradesh

Incidentally, a large part of western Madhya Pradesh remains in the heat zone. An orange alert has been issued for the next 24 hours for Indore, Ratlam, Ujjain, Dhar, Dewas, and Guna districts.Eyewitnesses said the explosion was so intense that the sound reached a nearby village. Videos that surfaced on social media after the incident showed thick white smoke billowing from the factory as people carried injured workers to hospitals amid chaos and cries for help.