Tanker fire tragedy: 15 dead in 9 days, 3 more critical

KHARGONE: The tanker fire tragedy continues to smoulder, and scorch lives in a tiny highway-side hamlet in Madhya Pradesh's Khargone district. Funerals haven't stopped here since the first one on October 26 - a third of its population is either dead or maimed for life.
Two more victims died on Friday, taking the toll to 15. Fourteen of the 17 people taken to Indore's MY Hospital have died in the last nine days.The remaining three are still critical, with one of them, a 19-year-old, on ventilator. The settlement of Mod Falia is home to 18 families, or 90 people. "As many as 26 of them are affected. Thirteen of the dead are close relatives," Khargone zilla panchayat CEO Jyoti Sharma told TOI.
Six families have lost their heads. Children have lost mothers, fathers. The wailing hasn't stopped. Officials who have to meet the victims' relatives for the paperwork of compensation are shaken.
A wrong turn, a spark and a desperation born out of poverty came together on the morning of October 26 to trigger this tragedy.
A tanker laden with 1,200 litres of diesel and petrol overturned at a sharp curve near Anjangaon, 30km from Khargone district headquarters at 5.40am. It began leaking fuel.
Mod Falia was just waking up then. A group of villagers were huddled at the tubewell to fetch water for the day. The tanker crashed barely 50 feet from them.
They ran to collect the leaking fuel in the pots and buckets they had brought to take home water. The driver and cleaner of the tanker apparently warned them to step back and not to use mobile phones.
In the frenzy to get free fuel, both were ignored. Villagers started calling people on the phone to join them. People started taking selfies. Children scampered over to join the excitement.
Around 100 lives were huddled around the tanker when it erupted. Some say it exploded but officials deny this.
Over two dozen people, children included, suffered horrific burns. An 18-year-old girl, Rangu Bai, was charred to a cinder. Even her skeleton was in pieces when they found her. Twenty-three of the victims were taken to hospital, 17 of whom were found to be very critical and rushed to Indore, 100km away.
The grim procession of funerals started the next day. A woman who had suffered 100% burns died, followed by two who had 90% burns.
Late Thursday night, 40-year-old Kamla Bai (47% burns) and 25-year-old Ram Singh (41% burns) died during treatment, SDM Om Narayan Singh told TOI. Kamla had come to celebrate Diwali at her maternal home.
When district collector Kumar Purshottam visited the village, he saw three more people with burns and sent them to hospital, the SDM said. All nine survivors who were admitted to Khargone hospital have recovered, say officials.
The scars and trauma remain. The government is profiling the affected families to decide what assistance, financial and otherwise, is needed. On Friday, the families of the deceased were given compensation of Rs 4 lakh each, CEO Jyoti Sharma said.
Dedicated teams from various departments have been deployed with the affected families. Since the accident, food for the entire hamlet is being prepared daily through public cooperation. There are far too many funerals for people to think of cooking.
A separate roadmap is being prepared for families that have lost their lone breadwinners.
Arrangements are being made to ensure their children get proper education, Sharma said. But the villagers know that help will stop coming at some point of time. Gendli Bai, who lost his son Rahul and husband in the accident, said she has another son and daughter to feed. "Rahul had got 82% marks in class 10 and wanted to become a doctor. He would have got our family out of misery," she sobbed.
Some victims are having to depend on relatives. Prakash's wife Surma Bai died in the fire and a 13-year-old daughter was injured. His children, aged 9, 4 and 2, are being looked after by relatives.
"The compensation will help us survive this immediate crisis but the void of losing the earning members will haunt families," said Kalabai, whose son Munna was killed in the fire. Another son Badal is critically injured. Her husband is partially blind. "What will happen to us," she wonders.
While the victims' families agonise, what caused the fire is still a mystery. A probe team from Bharat Petroleum hasn't been able to pinpoint a reason. Apart from mechanical and electrical reasons, they believe a spark from a mobile phone, beedi smoked by villagers or the tanker's battery caused the fire. What's established, however, is that the driver deviated from the prescribed route and was carrying another person in the cabin when the accident took place. TNN