Blast at Nagpur Explosives Factory Kills Nine Workers

Other workers have been protesting at the site and demanding accountability from the company.

The Wire Staff

Other workers have been protesting at the site and demanding accountability from the company.

blast at nagpur explosives factory kills nine workers

The site of the blast. Photo: X/@Dev_Fadnavis

New Delhi: At least nine workers were killed and three others seriously injured in a blast at an explosives manufacturing factory in the rural part of Maharashtra's Nagpur district on Sunday (December 17).

The blast took place at 9 am in a cast booster unit of Solar Industries India Ltd at Bazaargaon, around 60 km away from Nagpur, The Hindu reported. “The incident took place during a sieving operation [the explosive raw material is sieved before use] in a building where boosters for use in coal mines are made. Prima facie, nine persons have died following the explosion. The situation is under control. No labourer was currently in the building,” the newspaper quoted a company official as saying.

Other workers have been protesting at the site, The Hindu reported, and demanding accountability from the company.

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the site on Sunday and said the Maharashtra government would provide Rs 5 lakh ex gratia compensation to the kin of the deceased. “This is an extremely unfortunate and tragic accident. Chief minister Eknath Shinde has already announced compensation of Rs 5 lakh for each of the kin of the deceased. We are thoroughly probing the cause of the accident,” he said.

Chief minister Shinde has told the district administration and the police to follow up on the case.

This article went live on December eighteenth, two thousand twenty three, at twenty-five minutes past ten in the morning.

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