A 44-year-old government school teacher and two migrant workers were among seven people killed after a pickup truck laden with diesel caught fire and exploded on Saturday while transferring fuel to another vehicle in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district, police said.
The deceased were identified as Jagarapu Sunitha (44), a teacher from Visakhapatnam who worked at mandal parishad school at Maidrebu village, Manyala Manikantha (23), Adiboyina Guru Pavan (27), Pangi Chiranjeevi, Tinku Chandra Vamsi Singh, a JCB operator from Bihar, Nazeer from Assam and Mandala Narayana Rao.
The blast took place in Ananthagiri mandal’s Peechumamidi village at around 8.30 am. District SP Amit Bardar said the truck was carrying fuel for earthmoving machines engaged in road construction work in the area. He said it caught fire as workers prepared to transfer the fuel to another vehicle. The fire spread to a nearby dumper truck and a two-wheeler. All three vehicles were charred completely.
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An LPG cylinder inside one of the vehicles also subsequently exploded, said police officers.
The SP said the workers were moving diesel in drums to refuel vehicles because the work site was around 100 kilometres away. He also dismissed reports of detonators causing the blast. “It was an accidental fire. The pickup truck belonged to the contractor executing the road construction work,” he said.
“The bodies were shifted to Anakapalli Hospital for post-mortem examinations. Officials were making arrangements to hand them over to their families after formalities,” the SP said.
State tribal welfare and home ministers Gummadi Sandhya Rani and Vangalapudi Anitha expressed shock and grief. District collector T Nishanthi said the victims’ immediate families would receive an ex gratia sum of ₹5 lakh each on behalf of the contractor.
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“In addition, the authorities would facilitate insurance assistance to eligible families in accordance with the applicable policy terms and conditions,” she said.