At least 80 die as gas blast rips through breakfast restaurant in central India

At least 82 people died when a gas cylinder exploded in a packed restaurant in India’s central Madhya Pradesh state on Saturday morning, a senior local health official said, with the toll jumping after more bodies were recovered. "The postmortems of 60 bodies have been carried out, another 22 are pending, meaning there are 82 bodies. The number of injured is around 100,“ Arun Kumar Sharma, chief medical officer of Jhabua district, told AFP. 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, senior district police official Seema Alava said.

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.

Police official Seema Alava

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 blast, which is already under investigation, was not immediately clear.

Asia-Pacific cylinder explosion