Five injured in cylinder blast at Noida hardware factory

Noida: Five men were injured after an LPG cylinder blast at a hardware factory in Sector 2 on Tuesday

Noida: Five men were injured after an LPG cylinder blast at a hardware factory in Sector 2 on Tuesday. The factory did not have a no-objection certificate from the fire department, said officials, adding that the incident took place around 11 am.

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“It seems that the factory had a furnace for which it used LPG cylinders. One of the cylinders was kept close to the furnace and because of the heat, it burst injuring the five people nearby,” said Arun Kumar Singh, chief fire officer, Gautam Budh Nagar.

The officials said that there were another 150 workers in the main factory and only the five were present in the shed with the furnace. It took one fire tender nearly 15 minutes to control the fire.

“Because of the lack of any hazardous material, the fire did not spread making it easy to control. Though the factory appeared to have the necessary fire fighting equipment, they did not have an NOC. Necessary action will be taken soon in this case upon further investigation,” said Singh.

Workers said that the blast also damaged the tin roof of the shed. “We heard a huge bang after which we rushed outside. We saw that a part of the shed had caught fire and the people inside were injured. It took us a while to pull them out after which we realised that a cylinder had burst,” said Monu, a worker at the factory.

Police said that the five injured workers were first taken to the district hospital from where they were referred to the burn unit of a higher centre in Delhi.

“Two of them are said to be in critical state and are undergoing treatment for third degree burns,” said Rakesh Kumar Singh, station house officer, Sector 20 police station.

He said that no complaint has been filed in this matter yet. But action will be taken as soon as the complaint is filed, SHO said.