JAIPUR: An 800-metre stretch of the Jaipur-Ajmer National Highway near Bhankrota in the Rajasthan capital turned into a scene of unmitigated tragedy and devastation at dawn Friday after a collision between an LPG tanker and a truck set off a chain of explosions, killing 12 people, critically injuring at least 33, and leaving a row of cars and sleeper buses charred.
Ten bus passengers are among the people unaccounted for. DCP (West) Amit Kumar said former IAS officer Karni Singh had also been reported missing.
Authorities quoted witnesses as saying that the Bharat Petroleum tanker entering Jaipur from Ajmer was making a U-turn near the Delhi Public School junction when the linen-laden truck speeding down the opposite carriageway crashed into it. Such was the impact that it broke the tanker’s nozzles, releasing a gush of LPG into the air that fuelled the serial explosions that followed.
Vehicles trailing the tanker and the truck were reduced to metal barebones in the inferno. Some of the victims inside these vehicles, including buses, presumably had little or no time to escape.
Over 40 vehicles were gutted in the fire trail. Officials said it could have been worse had the blaze spread to three fuel stations in the vicinity.
‘Tanker gas gushed out like water from overflowing dam’
CCTV footage from the scene captured the scale of explosions at 5.45am, with the flames visible from a distance and the noise waking up people several kilometres away. Seven of the deceased were identified as Harlal (32); motorcyclist Radheyshyam Choudhary (32); truck driver Shahbuddin (34) of UP’s Rae Bareli; Shahid (34) and Faizan (20) from Udaipur’ Mahendra (27) of Makrana; and Anita Meena (28), an armed police constable.
The tanker driver was unaccounted for until evening. Unconfirmed reports said he tried to flee but was unlikely to have made it through the inferno. The seven injured who are on ventilator support at Jaipur’s SMS Hospital include Yusuf (45), a Banswara resident; Vijeta (23); Raju Ram Baberwal (40) of Sikar; and Govind (32) from Kekri.
A witness said gas “gushed out of the nozzles like water from an overflowing dam”. A sleeper bus from Udaipur ferrying 24 passengers went up in flames. A truck filled with cartons of matchboxes caught fire just outside a fuel pump. Another tanker filled with gas broke down. Fire tenders used foam and water to avert an explosion.
Officials said over 25 fire engines were deployed, with teams arriving from Mansarovar, VKI, Vaishali Nagar, and Bani Park. The fire brigade removed the LPG tanker that exploded from the middle of the road. The residual gas was transferred to another tanker. In an official statement on X, Bharat Petroleum condoled the deaths and pledged Rs 6 lakh each to the next of kin of the victims and Rs 2 lakh to the injured.
PM Modi announced ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh and Rs 50,000 for the injured. CM Bhajan Lal Sharma announced assistance of Rs 5 lakh to the families of the deceased and Rs 1 lakh each to the injured. Transport secretary Shuchi Tyagi directed Jaipur district magistrate to set up a six-member committee to investigate the accident.
The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety, too, wrote to Rajasthan govt, seeking a report on the accident. The committee asked for a plan to improve road safety, officials said.
