In a freak mishap, a balloon-maker was killed and 12 children were injured on Thursday, when a cylinder containing liquid nitrogen that he was using to inflate balloons exploded at a school at Nandivli in Kalyan (east) of the neighbouring Thane district.
Identifying the balloon-maker killed in the mishap as Ramdharas Daulat Prasad (52), the Kolsewadi police in Kalyan said that the injured children were admitted to a nearby private for treatment. “The injuries suffered by children are not very serious in nature,” a police official said.
The mishap took place at Arya Gurukul School at 1.45 pm when the balloon-maker — hired specially by the school management for its annual sports day — was inflating the balloons for the children, using liquid nitrogen that he brought in a cylinder.
At least 20 to 25 children had gathered around the balloon maker to watch him inflate the balloons using liquid nitrogen, when the incident took place.
Inflating balloons using liquid nitrogen are fun experiments conducted at schools. The explosion of hydrogen balloons is a commonplace during school demonstrations of cryogenic properties of liquid nitrogen. However, it was not immediately known as to how the cylinder blew up in the face of the balloon maker at the Arya Gurukul school.
Prasad, who was engaged in inflating balloons, died instantly when the cylinder that he was using exploded all of a sudden. Before long, the fire brigade personnel arrived at the school and brought the situation under control.