Four members of a family, including two children, were charred to death in a fire that broke out following LPG leak from a kitchen cylinder in Sitamarhi district late on Thursday night.
Ranjan Kumar’s house at Pupari’s Paschim Tola in Cheraut block went up in flames after the cylinder blew up.
The victims — Ranjan’s wife Soni Devi (25), her two children Sahil (5) and Kriti Kumari (3), and Ranjan’s mother Shanti Devi (60) — were fast asleep at the house in Pupari sub-divisional town, about 30km east of the district headquarters, when the flames consumed them.
Their bodies were charred beyond recognition. Ranjan, a daily wage labourer, survived because he was away at that time of the fire.
He had gone to a relative’s house a day earlier. He rushed back home on Friday morning after his neighbours informed him of the tragedy, Cheraut block development officer (BDO) Madan Kumar said. He is the only surviving member of the family.
BDO Kumar said under the state government’s Kabir Anteshthi Yojana, the victims’ family had been provided Rs 1,500 each for the last rites. In addition, the family would be provided a house under Indira Awas Yojana. Plastic sheets and foodgrain have also been given to the family, he said.
Pupari sub-divisional officer (SDO) Ujjawal Kumar Sinha surveyed the spot and told reporters that the district administration would provide adequate compensation to the victims’ family.
A report has already been submitted to the district magistrate recommending compensation, he said.
Sitamarhi SP Pankaj Kumar said that a case of unnatural death was lodged at Nanpur police station.
In a similar fire incident caused by LPG cylinder leak at Dehri-on-Sone in Rohtas district on March 24, at least eight persons had died and nine others were seriously injured. Four children had died on the spot also. In fact, a day after the Dehri-on-Sone incident, the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) issued instructions to all Indane distributors asking them to ensure that the cylinder leak complaints were immediately attended to.
Taking a serious cognisance of the incident, IOC area manager (Patna) Tridiv Dutta wrote a letter to all the dealers under Patna area office on March 25 saying that the IOC had come to know that the distributors were reluctant to attend to the complaints of LPG cylinder leakage.
Dutta said: “Such complaints should be attended by the distributor concerned within 10 minutes. If any lapse on the part of the distributor is found, the emergency service centre (ESC) will bring it to the notice of the IOC, which, in turn, mark it as ‘distributor’s response nil’.”
However, Thursday night’s incident in Sitamarhi proved that nothing happened much in this regard.
Following the Rohtas tragedy, Ara-based bottling plant (area) manager N. Konark said it was the responsibility of the dealer to ensure that no expired cylinder was supplied to a consumer. It is yet to be ascertained whether the cylinder in Sitamarhi had passed the expiry date. But a homemaker in Patna said such practice was quite rampant as people do not check cylinders regularly.
