At least 21 people, one of them a child, were injured when an LPG cylinder exploded and the leaking gas sparked a fire on the ground floor of a two-storey building on Bichali Ghat Road in southwest Kolkata’s Garden Reach on Thursday afternoon.
At least two of the injured are in a critical condition.
The fire started in the kitchen when some members of the family were cooking, police said.
An officer said they received the first report of the fire around 5.40pm.
Bichali Ghat Road was crowded and the flames spread to a row of shops adjoining the house, leaving several people with burns, the police said.
Most of the injured were admitted to SSKM Hospital. Two persons with critical injuries were admitted to a private hospital.
Four fire tenders were sent to douse the flames and carry out a rescue operation, the police said.
The area around the house was cordoned off.
Senior police officers requisitioned ambulances from nearby police stations and hospitals to ferry the injured to SSKM Hospital.
“The condition of some of the injured persons is critical because of the degree of burns they have suffered,” said a senior doctor of SSKM Hospital’s Trauma Care Centre.
Mayor Firhad Hakim visited the injured in the hospital at night.
The cylinder was in the kitchen on the ground floor of the double-storey building, which also houses a number of shops, the police said.
Soon after the cylinder burst, gas from it caught fire and spread to a shop adjoining the kitchen.
The kitchen was littered with chunks of the iron cylinder and those who were cooking suffered maximum injuries, the police said.
“Many more were injured than what we have come to know because several with burns fled the spot,” said a senior officer of the Garden Reach police station.
“We were alerted about the fire by a resident of the area who had dialed 100 (the police helpline). A forensic examination of the accident site will be carried out on Friday,” the officer said.