Chennai, Oct 17 (IANS) Thirtytwo people were charred to death when a fire suddenly enveloped a firecracker shop located in a godown in a Tamil Nadu village, trapping a large number of customers who could not escape through the narrow exit, police said Saturday.
Three people were hospitalised with varying degrees of burn injuries following the Diwali eve blaze in Pallipatu village in Thiruvallur district, about 90 km from Chennai.

The dead also included shop assistants. It was one of the worst tragedies of its kind in Tamil Nadu, which is home to India’s biggest firecracker industry.

It took two firetenders to douse the flames.

An official of the Thiruvallur Collectorate told IANS on telephone from the accident site: “Thirtytwo charred bodies have been recovered after the blaze. The dead include shop workers as well as shoppers.”

The impromptu cracker shop was functioning out of a godown located behind a rice mill. The tragedy took place when a large number of people had gathered for last minute frenzied shopping.

Suddenly a fire broke out and enveloped the shop in no time, setting off powerful explosions.

The narrow godown entrance made it difficult for people to escape as well as for the fire service personnel to carry out rescue operations.

Once they did enter the building, they saw the shop had been reduced to ashes — and discovered 32 charred bodies.

The bodies were taken to hospital for post mortem examination and identification. A large crowd gathered at the hospital curious to know the story of the tragedy.

Most of the dead were reportedly from the border villages of Andhra Pradesh who had come to buy crackers in large quantities.

About a dozen of the shop employees were also from Andhra Pradesh. The rest were from Tamil Nadu.

The police acted quickly and arrested the godown owner, Jaishankar, as well as the man who ran the shop, Ananda Kumar.

Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has announced a compensation of Rs.100,000 for each of the dead, to be given to their families.

According to police officials, DMK leader and the chief minister’s son M.K. Stalin is expected to visit the hospital. Police have beefed up security around the hospital.

The police are investigating the cause of the accident as well as whether the shop had been licensed to sell firecrackers.