Four people died while 15 were severely injured in the boiler blast which took place at a chemical factory named Canton Laboratories in the Vadodara district of Gujarat on Friday.
A fire brigade and a police convoy rushed to the spot right after the blast. The blast was so massive that the walls of surrounding houses came crashing down and the glasses of buildings around 1.5 kms shattered.
As per the fire brigade’s investigation, the colony was illegally built by the company right next to the boiler. It was inhabited by people working for the company.
While four people have been killed, that included a mother-daughter duo, sixteen others have been injured. The injured were rushed to hospitals.
The owner of Canton Laboratories said that the blast occurred around 8.45 a.m. today morning and since they were inside the plant, they did not know how it occurred. He further said that the injured were rushed to hospitals.
Canton Laboratories is based in Vadodara, manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). This is the second such incident in a span of eight days that has killed more than ten people in Gujarat.
A similar factory blast had occurred On December 16 that had killed seven persons and injured several in Panchmahal district.