A 45-year-old wage worker hailing from Madhya Pradesh was killed on the spot in an explosion at a scrap shop here on Friday.
The victim was identified as Ramchand Saahu, and his co-workers — 20-year-old Md. Salman Khan, from Uttar Pradesh, and 45-year-old Dharavath Bujji, from the neighbouring Chivvemla mandal, were severely injured.
According to locals, they heard a bomb explosion-like sound from the Venkatasai Scrap Shop near the Ayyapa Swamy temple at around 10.30 a.m. one wall of the shop wall was broken due the impact and a few persons were stuck inside, they said. The Suryapet town police which reached the spot rushed the victims to the Area Hospital for emergency care, and pressed into service bomb squad and the dog squad. Officials from the Forensic team too reached the site and collected samples. On preliminarily investigation the police suspect that the blast was due to improper handling of plastic containers that contained chemicals.
Suryapet Superintendent of Police R. Venkateswarlu, clarified that it was not a bomb blast, as initially reported by some media outlets, and said that the explosion was due to reaction among chemical solvents that was present in the scrapped plastic containers.
“We came to understand that Ramachand Saahu was operating the plastic cutting machine. The machine was apparently overloaded and when the chemical solvent in the containers came in contact with the heat causing the explosion,” he said.
