‘How to tell wife, kids’: 3 CNG station staffers killed as truck tank explodes

According to the Delhi Fire Service, the incident was reported at 3:47 pm at the CNG pump. Officials said that the truck’s gas tank exploded when a CNG pipe was being connected to it.   Four fire tenders were rushed to the spot, located near the Tikri Kalan Metro station. The station was cordoned off.  The fuel station employees who died were identified as Manish, Brahamjeet and Sunny. The driver of the vehicle, a Tata truck, is among those injured. Apart from the truck, a scooter  and a Eeco car also suffered damage.

Families mourn

Manish, 25, was a resident of Baba Haridas Colony in West Delhi. “He was the one refuelling the truck,” said a senior police officer.  When Manish’s friend Ashish and uncle Vijay Prasad got a call about him getting injured, they rushed from their homes in Baba Haridas Nagar, assuming that he would be in the hospital by the time they reach.  “For half an hour, he was lying there at the station. He had severe burn injuries…We had to take him to the hospital,” said Ashish. Manish, father of a five-month-old, got married last year. He had taken up the job just eight months ago and fed a family of five, including his elderly parents, according to the relatives. Ashish also claimed that Manish had been talking about leaks at the station for some days.

“He and the others were even given leave as repair work was going on,” he added.

Brahamjeet’s nephew,

Aditya, said that he got a call at about 4:30 pm that he had been critically injured. “I went to the station but an ambulance had not arrived even then. I took him to the Jeevan Jyoti Hospital in Bahadurgarh. I don’t know what to tell his wife and kids,” he said.

The third deceased, Sunny, 30, who lived in Nizampur area, had been working at the station for three years, and lived with his parents, widowed sister-in-law and her children.  “He was the sole breadwinner. Finally he had some savings, and we were thinking of getting him married,” said Balraj, Sunny’s uncle.