India gas cylinder blast death toll hits 104: police

At least 104 people had died as a cooking gas cylinder explodes in a packed restaurant in India’s central Madhya Pradesh state, with the blast shattering nearby buildings.

The death toll rose rapidly from an initial count of 20 after rescuers recovered dozens more bodies from the debris of the destroyed restaurant and neighboring structures in the town of Petlawad in Jhabua district.

An inspector in charge of Jhabua’s police control room, M. L. Gond told pressmen that there are 104 confirmed deaths at the moment adding that Eighty-two postmortems have been carried out and 22 are still pending.

On his part, Chief Medical Officer of Jhabua District, Arun Kumar Sharma, states that about 100 people were injured in the blast, 20 of them seriously.

A Senior District Police Official Seema Alava confirmed that the blast occurred at around 8:30 am local time (0300 GMT) at the restaurant where many office workers and schoolchildren were having breakfast.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took to twitter to express his sadness at the loss of life.

The Jhabua tragedy is heart wrenching. I offer my condolences to the families of the victims and pray for the speedy recovery of those injured.

He offered compensation of 200,000 rupees ($3,020) to the families of the dead and 50,000 rupees ($755) to help the injured victims.

Chouhan has also ordered an inquiry into the matter.