Nine passengers were killed on Saturday when a fire suspected to have started from a cooking gas cylinder engulfed a train coach hired by pilgrims from Uttar Pradesh touring the south while it was parked at Madurai station.

At least 38 passengers leapt out of the coach to escape. Eight of them were injured and are in hospital.

The blaze broke out at 5.15am and was put out by 7.15am by fire services personnel who had reached the spot in about half an hour, a Southern Railway release said.

The coach had been booked by a group that left Uttar Pradesh on August 17 for a tour of the pilgrimage sites in southern India. It was attached to different trains
during the course of the journey. On Friday, it had been attached to the Punalur-Madurai Express at Nagercoil junction and had arrived at Madurai junction at 3.47am on Saturday. It was detached and parked “at the Madurai stabling line”, the railways said, and was to be attached to the Chennai-Kollam Anantapur Express on Sunday to take the pilgrims to Rameswaram.

n LPG cylinder and other items at the spot where a fire broke out in a stationary coach of a train at Madurai railway station on Saturday. PTI photo

“The passengers in the private party coach had... smuggled a gas cylinder and this has caused the fire,” Southern Railway said in the release.

“While the coach was stabled/ parked, some members of the party in the private party coach were using the illegally smuggled cooking gas cylinder unauthorisedly for preparing tea/ snacks, which caused the fire in the stabled/ parked coach. Most of the passengers could get out of the coach on noticing the fire. Some passengers had already got down at the platform before the detachment of the coach,” it added.

Among the items found at the spot were an LPG cylinder, a bag of potatoes, utensils and wooden logs.

Alka Prajapati, a survivor undergoing treatment at a government hospital in Madurai, said she was asleep when the blaze started and was woken up by cries of “fire, fire”.

“We were sleeping when we heard the cries and tried to escape. The door was locked, so we could not escape immediately. Someone broke
the lock and we came out. There was thick smoke and I couldn’t breathe properly and just took God’s name,” she told PTI.

Security personnel and other officials at the spot. PTI photo

Railway employees arrived in 15-20 minutes, “but by then the coach was ablaze”, she added.

A senior official at the Madurai railway division said: “What the passengers say is that, early in the morning they heard a sudden sound and flames began to spread in the compartment and a person making tea in the coach cried out ‘there is a fire’.”

Sources said the private tour party had 55 members and they had booked the coach using the IRCTC portal.

The passengers were from different places in Uttar Pradesh, including Lucknow, Lakhimpur and Sitapur, the railway official said.

“It appears that multiple groups had gathered (in Uttar Pradesh), guided by different tour operators. Many of them would have met for the first time,” the official said. Such tours have a “common programme” and a train coach is booked for travel. However, the passengers are not allowed to carry any inflammable materials like gas cylinders, the official said.

Madurai collector M.S. Sangeetha, who was among the officials to visit the accident site, said five men and four women had died. Seven have been identified.

Tamil Nadu health minister Ma. Subramanian rushed to Madurai and visited the injured passengers at the hospital.

Chief minister M.K. Stalin said: “Deeply saddened by the tragic incident near Madurai railway junction where nine precious lives were lost in a train fire accident.”

Additional reporting by PTI