Jaipur: The Jaipur Ajmer Highway reverberated with explosions late Tuesday night as a tanker filled with chemicals collided with a truck loaded with LPG cylinders parked on the roadside. The accident sparked a massive fire that reached the LPG cylinders that triggered multiple explosions for nearly an hour as gas cylinders began to burst. The sound of the explosions was audible several kilometers away, while some cylinders landed in fields 500 meters away from the spot.
The accident took place near Moukhampura, around 50 km from Jaipur. The body of the tanker driver identified as Ramraj Meena turned into ashes, while five others were injured.
The inspector general of Jaipur, Rahul Prakash, said that the accident occurred when a tanker hit a truck parked at a roadside eatery from behind. One person died in this incident, while several others were injured. Four people with burn injuries were rushed to a nearby hospital for first aid.
It took around three and a half hours to control the fire, as the truck was carrying a total of 330 cylinders, of which nearly 200 exploded. Five other vehicles parked nearby also caught fire.
An eyewitness, Joginder Singh, said that the truck loaded with cylinders was parked on the roadside as the driver was taking a meal in the dhaba. Meanwhile, a speeding chemical tanker, seeing the RTO vehicle, entered the dhaba and collided with the parked truck.
The Maujmabad Tehsildar Surendra Vishnoi stated that the tanker was carrying benzene and was heading to Gujarat. It took nearly seven hours to cool off the tanker, and the traffic on the national highway had to be diverted.
In December last year, an LPG tanker collided with a truck near Bhankrota in Jaipur on the same highway, sparking a massive fireball that turned a stretch of the highway into an inferno, killing 19 people.
