Lucknow: Three persons were killed and half-a-dozen injured in a blast at a cracker manufacturing unit in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday evening, police said. The accident took place at the Dhaarupur village. The impact of the blast was so big that a double-storey house was razed to the ground and the bodies of the victims were blown to pieces and recovered from several yards. Senior district administrative and police officers have rushed to the scene of the explosion to oversee rescue and relief operations.
According to preliminary reports, a village resident with a licence to manufacture crackers had started to run the business from his residence-cum- factory when the blast took place. The death toll may go up following critical injuries to many people, an official told IANS.