The grounds of Puttingal Devi Temple in Paravur in Kerala’s Kollam district resembled a place pulverised by persistent carpet-bombing with charred and mutilated human bodies and debris of reinforced concrete buildings lying in around while cries for help rent the air.
When rescue workers arrived at Ground Zero followed by the first earth-moving machines and ambulances, they found the debris was more than three-foot thick at some spots while the shattered concrete roofs of the still-standing buildings in the premises had under them victims of the tragedy, dead and alive, according to local people.
“It was absolute darkness everywhere. Electricity was cut off instantaneously in the blast in which the Kambappura, storehouse for the explosives for the fireworks show, shattered into smithereens. Still, we could make out the festival ground. It was a ghastly sight and I will never want to remember that,” said Sukumaran Nair, a resident of Paravur.
The blast was so powerful that shattered pieces of concrete buildings were hurled as far away as more than a kilometre from the temple. Reports said that a heavy piece of debris fell on a person travelling on a motorbike at a distance of more than half a kilometre from the site, killing him instantly.
S lallu, correspondent of Asianet News TV channel who was watching the spectacle of the fireworks display from atop a building roof just 150 metres away from the Kambappura, said the sound of the blast was so deafening and the light from it so fierce that nobody could comprehend for a few minutes what had happened.
“The entire earth shook, the buildings shivered. Suddenly, there was no power, phone lines went off. For some moments, some kind of silence hung in the air. Then chaos reigned with cries of agony and anxiety filling the air,” lallu said, adding that the entire festival grounds were overcrowded at the time of the accident.
Utter confusion prevailed at the accident site for a long time, said an eyewitness. People were at the same time afraid to stay at the festival ground or to move away because they feared that more unexploded explosives could be lying around, he said, adding that many people were seen crying aloud seeking help.
“The fireworks display had started at 11.45 pm and the tragedy occurred around 3.30 am. For nearly four hours, it was incident-free and hell-fire descended on the festival ground when a piece of a half-exploded projectile, called Amittu, fell on the roof of the Kambappura igniting it instantly. This happened when just 30 minutes were remaining for the display to end,” he said.
The shockwaves of the blast was said to have been felt in a radius of over a kilometre and hundreds of houses around the temple suffered huge damage. The Kambappura itself was pulverised, and other buildings, including the shrine and the office of the Devaswom Board, the temple administration body, in the premises suffered extensive damages.
Those who were at the festival ground at the time of the blast said that the rescue works were hampered by the lack of light and problems in communication networks. “The situation was so confusing that it was difficult even to decide where the search should start. But the rescue workers’ reflex should be appreciated,” said Sukumaran Nair.