Six Killed and 10 others Injured in Wardha Explosion, Maharashtra

Guwahati: In an explosion taking place near an ordnance depot in Maharashtra’s Wardha district, at least six people killed and 10 others are injured on Tuesday morning. The explosion took place at around 7 in the morning and as stated by a Defence official, it happened while ammunition was being unloaded for disposal.

The situation turned worst when the contract laborers present at the site got critically wounded due to the explosion with some of them being killed on the spot. As reported by Wardha’s Additional Superintendent of Police Nikhil Pingle, there were around 10 to 15 contract labourers at the site.

Pingle states, “The blast occurred in one of the ammunition boxes while unloading the ammunition. The incident took place in an open land.”

Four labourers were killed on-the-spot due to the severity of the explosion and two others succumbed to their injuries in hospital. Other critically injured labourers are also admitted to a hospital in the nearby Savangi village. Among the deceased people, there was an ammunition factory employee as well.

For bringing the situation under control, police and fire brigade officials ran a joint operation and have started carrying out rescue operations.

The demolition ground at the Central Ammunition Depot at Pulgaon in the district was given to the Ammunition Factory, Khamaria (Madhya Pradesh), for demolition activities, he said.

In another saddening incident like this which happened in 2016, 16 people were killed at the ammunition depot at Pulgaon. As such ammunition depot are not completely safe and have total probabilities of catching explosion, the authority should have adequate facilities of fire extinction and emergency exit of its employees in the absence of which such instances of loss of lives gets to happen.

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