Mangalore: LPG Cylinder Blast: Providential Escape for Rickshaw Driver, Passenger
Exclusive pics by Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)
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Mangalore, Mar 19: An autorickshaw that was coming to the city from Bajpe went virtually into flames after the LPG cylinders fitted to the vehicle burst on the way, at Panambur in the city on Thursday March 19.
The autorickshaw, bearing registration No. KA 19-A 1671, was being driven by a person named Basheer from Bajpe. Anwar from Bajpe, a passenger was also on the autorickshaw. The vehicle was reportedly moving towards Kuloor for buying certain items from a hardware shop there. As the auto was moving through the New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) quarters road at around 1 pm, Anwar, seated in the backseat, started feeling heat being generated from below. He immediately asked the driver to stop. As both of them got down and looked back, to their horror, the bottom back portion of the auto rickshaw was on fire. Both of them immediately ran away from the spot and reached the NMPT office to get help from the fire brigade. However, before they could do anything, the two 5.5 kg LPG cylinders fitted to the autorickshaw burst into flames and gutted down the autorickshaw.
As the accident happened in a lonely road, no loss of human lives or injury occurred. The blast was so powerful, that a 16 kg empty gas cylinder placed inside the autorickshaw was blown off to about 30-feet distance. Window panes of a few houses located a little farther were shattered and bushes on the roadside caught fire.
The driver and the passenger in the rickshaw claimed that they did not feel any suspicious smell or anything unusual other than the heat, before the accident. The Panambur policemen reached the spot later. Fire brigade personnel both from NMPT and the city fire brigade came on the scene a little after the accident and doused the flames engulfing the vehicle and the bushes. NMPT chairman Tamilvanan also visited the site.
One shudders to think the catastrophic affects the accident would have inflicted, if the blast had occurred on a busy city street in the city or before the two got down from the vehicle. People who gathered at the site expressed the opinion that there is a need to exhaustively undertake checks to double-check the safety standards of the autorickshaws being run on gas.
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