Gas leak triggers deadly blast

Three die as fire sweeps through the house in Jahanian

KHANEWAL:

Fire in the kitchen of a house in the suburb of Sadiqabad claimed three lives.

The fire broke out due to a leakage from a gas cylinder.

Rao Akhtar and his son, Rao Shabbir Ahmed, and a friend of his, Muhammad Imran, had been in the kitchen, and they had put a fan at the door to the kitchen. Due to the air from the fan they could not smell of the leaking gas and unwittingly lit a match stick.

No sooner had they lit the match stick than a blast shook the kitchen, and a fire blazed across the house.

All the three men received serious burn injuries.

They were rushed to the Nishtar Hospital in Multan and were admitted to burns unit of the hospital.

Rao Akhtar and his son Rao Shabbir Ahmed died of their injuries on Sunday while Mohammad Imran died on Monday.

Mohammad Imran left behind six daughters. He had been the sole breadwinner of the family.

Muhammad Shabbir also left behind a daughter.

The business of illegal gas refilling units is thriving in Thatha Sadiqabad and its surrounding areas. It has claimed many lives, but no legal action was taken against anyone.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Imran was laid to rest in his native graveyard.

In May this year, a teenage boy had lost his life while eight others, including women and children, sustained injuries as a result of a powerful gas cylinder blast which ripped through a two-story residential building in the People’s Colony area of Rawalpindi.

The incident had happened just a day after a gas explosion claimed lives of three siblings while their mother and another sibling suffered 70 per cent burn injuries in a house in Shamsabad within the limits of the Sadiqabad Police Station.

The explosion purportedly occurred due to a gas cylinder leak while area residents said the area suffered from severe gas shortage due to which most households used gas cylinders for cooking.

According to sources, in the aftermath of the explosion in the People’s Colony, a large part of the two-story house on Street 62 had collapsed.

A rescue spokesperson had said that there had been a gas leak from the cylinder in the house, and as soon as the fire was lit to light a cigarette, the gas cylinder exploded.

Area residents had said the blast caused by the cylinder was so severe that a large part of the house collapsed, and the windowpanes of the nearby buildings had also been shattered while eight people, including the head of the affected household, were buried under the rubble.

As soon as the information was received, the personnel of Rescue 1122 and the Race Course Police Stations arrived on the spot. The rescue personnel removed the injured from the wreckage and shifted them to a nearby hospital.

According to Muhammad Amar, the Station House Officer of the Race Course Police Station, and Rescue 1122 spokesperson Usman Gujar, as a result of the blast, 14-year-old Sahil died of his injuries.

They said that Imran, the house owner, had suffered 80 per cent burn injuries.

On June 1, five people were killed and three injured in an explosion inside a house in Kot Addu. According to Express News, the incident was reported in the Daira Deen Panah area of Kot Addu. The bodies of the deceased and those injured were shifted to a nearby hospital.

A police spokesperson informed that the blast took place in a home-built junk shop. He added that security agencies were at the spot to ascertain the nature of the blast.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2023.