A house packed with firecrackers exploded in eastern India on Friday evening, killing five people, three of them from the same family. The blast hit the village of Alampur in Bihar’s Siwan district at about half past five, in the busy weeks when demand for fireworks peaks ahead of the festival season.
Police said part of the stock caught fire first and the flames then spread through the rest. For around two hours the village heard explosion after explosion, and part of the front wall was hurled onto the road outside. Those blasts slowed down both the rescue and the work of identifying the dead. Officers named the victims as the 65-year-old homeowner, described as a firecracker trader, his granddaughters aged eight and 14, a ten-year-old boy from next door and one person who had not yet been identified. Three others got away with minor burns.
Several Indian outlets report that crackers were being made, not just stored, inside the building. Neighbours said the family had held a licence and had been in the business for about two decades; police say they will check that claim. Forensic experts, a bomb disposal squad and drones were sent in, and medical staff warned there might be another body under the rubble.
District police chief Bharat Soni suspended the officer in charge of the local station and a village watchman over alleged negligence. A special team is to establish where the explosives came from, whether the paperwork was valid and why earlier checks did not flag the risk.
Such accidents are a grim seasonal pattern in India, where fireworks are often stockpiled or assembled in ordinary homes in crowded neighbourhoods.
