12 injured in gas cylinder blast near Peshawar hospital: rescue official
Twelve people were injured on Saturday after a gas cylinder exploded in a roadside cafe near the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) in Peshawar, a rescue official said.
Rescue 1122 spokesperson Bilal Ahmed Faizi told Dawn.com that rescue officials immediately rushed to the scene upon receiving information regarding the blast and started the rescue operation.
Faizi said that the officials moved the injured to the hospital by themselves, adding that the fire was quickly brought under control by Rescue 1122 firefighters.
The spokesperson, citing hospital sources, said that the injured were undergoing treatment at the KTH.
Incidents of fire caused by leakage and explosion of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders occur routinely across the country.
Following an LPG tanker explosion in Punjab’s Multan last month that killed at least 19 and injured over a dozen others, the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat ordered a probe into the sale of adulterated LPG.
Earlier this week, one person was killed and seven others were injured in separate gas explosions in Balochistan’s Quetta and Pishin districts.
Last month, three people, including two minor girls, were injured in a gas cylinder explosion inside a shop in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Dera Ismail Khan district.
Prior to that incident, a man was burnt to death in Sindh’s Ghotki district and nine people were hospitalised with burn injuries in Rawalpindi in similar gas explosions.
In May last year, a major blast at an LPG cylinder filling shop in Hyderabad claimed the lives of at least 27 people, including 19 children, and left over a dozen others injured. It was followed by similar incidents in Bhitshah and Larkana within two weeks, leading to action against LPG filling shops in Sindh.