Eight people, including four children, were buried alive when the roofs of two houses caved in following a blast in Tikri village of Wazirganj police station area of Gonda around Tuesday midnight. At the time of the incident, the families were preparing for dinner.
As per reports, the explosion which occurred in the house of Noorul Hasan caused extensive damage to two adjacent houses in Tikri village. Upon getting information, several police teams and a fire tender reached the scene to remove the debris and rescue the victims. The administration teams worked for several hours with the help of earth-moving machines to remove the debris. Later, the injured were rushed to a hospital where eight were declared dead upon arrival while the condition of seven others was said to be critical. The deceased included two women and two children and the bodies were sent for autopsy. The deceased were identified as Mohammad Shoaib (2), Noori Saba (12), Meraj (11), Shahbaz (14), Nisar Ahmad (35), Rubina Bano (32), Shamshad (28) and Sairunisa (35).
A senior police officer said that prima facie, it appeared to be an LPG cylinder blast that caused the damage and loss of lives, but the police were taking into account other angles as well. To look into the terror angle, a team of sleuths from Lucknow and Ayodhya rushed to Gonda to collect the samples of the debris for a chemical analysis.
Chief Minister Adityanath expressed grief at the deaths and directed the officials concerned to ensure that the injured were provided the best possible treatment.