No fewer than 20 people lost their lives and 25 injured after a gas cylinder exploded in a restaurant in central India, a police official has stated.
The explosion occurred at around 8.30am at the restaurant in Jhabua district, in Madhya Pradesh State, as dozens of office workers and schoolchildren were having breakfast on Saturday, senior district police official Seema Alava stated.
“As of now, 20 people are confirmed dead. But this number could rise,” Alava told the AFP news agency from the site.
“Rescue efforts are on to find anyone who could be trapped inside [the debris].
“The restaurant was in a tightly packed locality and a lot of people were here having breakfast, that is why the casualties are so high,” she said, adding that about 25 injured people were rushed to a nearby hospital.
Television footage showed scores of people and rescue workers using their bare hands to shift mangled heaps of steel and concrete of the crumbled buildings while police cordoned off the area.
Alava said the intensity of the blast knocked down a neighbouring building and damaged several others.
The cause of the explosion is still sketchy.