Pune: Five men suffered burns after a leaking LPG cylinder exploded in their rented room at Buddhanagar in Pimpri, around 5.30am on Wednesday. The victims work as welders at a fabrication unit in Shikrapur.
The accident occurred soon after one of them lit a gas stove to prepare food, the Pimpri police said. "The victims are being treated at Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital ( YCMH ) in Pimpri. They sustained 30 to 40 percent burns," senior inspector Ashok Kadlag of the Pimpri police said.
Vikas Naik, a fire officer from the Pimpri Chinchwad fire brigade, told TOI that the five victims — Manoj Kumar (19), Dheeraj Kumar (23), Govind Ram (28), Satender Ram (30), and Ram Sheelaram (40) — were working with a fabrication unit at Shikrapur. They were staying in a small rented room at Bouddhanagar in Pimpri. "When we visited the room, we found that everything had been damaged in explosion," Naik said.
Naik said that he also found a 5kg cylinder in the room but its connecting pipe was old and had developed a crack. "We suspect that the gas may have leaked from the pipe and accumulated inside the room at night," Naik said. He said that in the morning, when one of them lit the stove, the explosion occurred and five of them sustained burns.
Bihari Prasad, a relative of the victims, said that all the workers were from Bihar. "They were staying in the room for the last five years," Prasad said. Two gas leak incidents in city, one injured Fire broke out in flats at Anandnagar on Sinh.