Five killed in stone quarry blast in Jharkhand, two bodies recovered
At least five people were reportedly killed and several others injured following a blast in a stone quarry unit under Shikaripara police station in Dumka district, around 350km northeast from state capital Ranchi on Thursday, said police.
They recovered two bodies from the site of the blast in the remote Lipipara area, over 35km from the Shikaripara police station. Three bodies were reportedly taken to a hospital in Rampurhat under West Bengal’s Birbhum district. Dumka police have sent a team to Rampurhat to ascertain the details. The area where the mishap took place falls on the Jharkhand-West Bengal border.
“So far, we have recovered two bodies from the place of occurrence. A team was sent to Rampurhat to authenticate if few bodies were brought there,” said Dumka superintendent of police (SP) Kishor Kaushal.
He said they were facing a major problem in the case as there was no complainant.
RANCHI:
Locals said the incident took place on Wednesday night when illegal miners from West Bengal were in the quarry trying to fix explosives, which suddenly exploded. However, some others claimed that the explosives were stored in a corner of the stone quarry unit, and the explosion happened while the miners were breaking stone chips, said police, quoting locals.
“We are verifying if the explosives went off while fixing or they were stored at a place. We have sought a report from the district mining officer to ascertain if this mine had permission for operation or was running illegally,” Kaushal said.
Local sources claimed the miners who survived the blast reportedly took the bodies and those injured towards West Bengal soon after the incident.
Police, however, said they could not verify this until the investigation was complete.