Eight injured as cylinder explodes

Condition of two victims said to be critical

DASKA:

The business of substandard cylinders could not be stopped in Daska despite increasing incidents of explosions in the city.

Citizens are in fear of accidents every day as passenger wagons, buses and rickshaws laden with substandard cylinders ply the roads freely while the administration remains a silent spectator.

Due to continuous negligence, a terrible accident of cylinder explosion took place at Chungi No. 8 in Daska on Thursday.

The explosion took place in the main cylinder of a rickshaw full of passengers. Due to the explosion, six passengers in the rickshaw and two passers-by sustained serious burn injuries. The explosion was so powerful that the windows of the surrounding shops were broken.

The rickshaw driver was going to the Civil Chowk with the passengers when two cylinders in the rickshaw exploded at 8 Chongi.

Fire engulfed the passengers and the two passers-by. The glasses of the rickshaw fell far and wide while the rickshaw was completely burnt to ashes.

Among the injured were Mumtaz Bibi, 45, Saleem, 58, Sarfraz, 40, Ayub 65, Abdul Rasheed, 56, and Younis, 58.

The rescue vehicles reached the spot and shifted the injured to the Civil Hospital.

The condition of two people was said to be critical. They have been referred to Lahore.

Vehicles plying Sialkot, Sambriyal, Pasrur and Daska are full of substandard cylinders which are supposed to be checked by the traffic police, but no one pays any attention to it. If any accident happens, some vehicles are challaned to appease the superior officers. Later, the same thing happens again.

A few months ago, Daska city was spared from a huge accident in which a vehicle full of cylinders was entering the city on Bombanwala Road when the schoolchildren had been on their way back home after school. Before entering the city, the cylinders started exploding, and all the cylinders flew and landed into the fields far away.

The administration did not learn any lesson from that incident. These vehicles are walking bombs in which the passengers travel at great risk.

Substandard cylinder filling shops are open all over the town and no one is monitoring them.

Many accidents have also happened at these shops and many people have died. To fake action against the dangerous cylinders, the shops are closed for some time only to open later.

According to Tahir, a rickshaw driver, petrol was so expensive that if he ran his rickshaw on petrol he would have no saving at the end of the day.

“Installing a gas cylinder saves some rupees. So the drivers use cylinders since petrol is expensive,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2023.