Ajmer – Rescuers discovered nine more bodies on Sunday beneath the ruins of an Indian hotel, bringing the known death toll from an explosion which tore through a wedding party to 18, an official said.
A gas cylinder exploded late on Friday at the hotel in the city of Beawar, in the western state of Rajasthan, reducing the venue to ruins and sparking a huge fire.
By Saturday evening, officials said nine bodies had been found.
But the figure rose sharply on Sunday as rescue teams, aided by the army, found nine more victims including women and children under rubble.
"So far, 18 bodies have been recovered," said Gaurav Goyal, a senior administrative official in Ajmer, the district where the blast occurred, about 200km from the state capital Jaipur.
Exploding cooking canister
"Five seriously injured people, with severe burn injuries, are being treated in hospital," he told AFP.
Recovery teams were sifting through mangled heaps of concrete and steel, removing victims on stretchers covered with white sheets.
The blast all but levelled the three-storey hotel where a wedding was underway. Eyewitnesses told local broadcaster NDTV the explosion occurred as a chef tried to refill a cooking canister.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje visited survivors in hospital late on Saturday and announced compensation of 200 000 rupees each for the families of the dead.
"The cylinder blast at the wedding ceremony at Beawar is nothing less than a nightmare," she said on Twitter.
Domestic gas cylinder explosions are common in India, where safety standards are relatively poor. Reports of fatal accidents from cylinder blasts are frequent but mass casualties are unusual.
The blast occurred last night when the wedding function was underway in a hotel, Ajmer district collector Gaurav Goyal said, adding that the explosion severely damaged the building. https://t.co/NU2aUP54FI
— India TV (@indiatvnews) February 17, 2018
