Till a couple of months ago, Nikhil Reddy (30) and N Sriramya (28), who were struggling to get their parents convinced about their love, had finally succeeded in winning their acceptance and were all set to get married in a grand manner the last week of July. However, both died when a blast ripped through a pharmaceutical plant in the Sangareddy district of Telangana on Monday.
According to the officials, 143 people were present at a plant of Sigachi Industries at Pashamylaram, around 50 km from Hyderabad, when a powerful explosion took place at 9:20am, triggering a blaze and caving in a three-storey building. According to the update on Tuesday, at least 37 people were killed and 20 bodies still remained untraceable .
Telugu Desam Party (TDP) legislator Kolikapudi Srinivas Rao from Thiruvuru assembly constituency in Krishna district, who played a key role in bringing the families of Nikhil and Sriramya together, said Nikhil, a resident of Jammalamadugu in Kadapa district, had completed his MSc and joined the Sigachi company three years ago.
“Sriramya, from Putrela village in Tiruvuru, also joined the same company after completing her MSc. Their friendship at the workplace gradually turned into love. But their families initially opposed the marriage due to caste differences,” he recalled.
He said the couple had approached him for help and he spoke to both the families to convince them to accept the marriage. “With all obstacles cleared, the couple decided to hold their wedding ceremony in the last week of July after the completion of Ashadha month, which is inauspicious for marriage,” he said.
“When I came to know about the explosion at the factory, I immediately tried to reach out to both Nikhil and Ramya, but there was no response. I rushed to the factory site, only to find that they were crushed under the collapsed slab of the administrative building,” Rao said.
The mortuary of the Patancheru government hospital was reverberating with the cries and woes of the relatives of the Pashamylaram accident victims. “What is there to see? I lost my husband. They have asked me to wait till evening to collect the body after post-mortem examination,” said a wailing woman, whose husband – VRG Nageshwara Rao, assistant manager (operations) at the Sigachi Industries — was charred to death in the blast.
Another victim, 24-year-old Bheem Rao from Kamareddy district had joined the job at Sigachi Industries two days ago and on the second day of his job, he was crushed under the debris and is battling for life in the hospital.
“He was extremely jubilant on the first day of his job. But the very next day, the tragedy struck us. Doctors say he is critical and there is not much hope,” Bheem’s wife Sonu told reporters at the hospital.
Another woman from Bihar, who did not identify herself, was wailing inconsolably, as the police prevented her from entering the factory premises in search of her lost husband. “He came to the factory at 8 am for the morning shift, but did not return till evening and I was told about the blast in the factory,” she said.
She said she had gone around different hospitals, but could not find her husband. “Why are they not telling me where he is? They should tell me no, which hospital they admitted him to?” she asked.
Majority of the victims are reportedly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh “Since many bodies were charred beyond recognition, it is very difficult to track their families,” an official at the plant site said.
Mithilesh Mukhiya travelled all the way from Darbhanga in Bihar, in search of his brother Laxmi Mukhiya, a 29-year-old production operator who had been working at Sigachi Industries for a decade. “My brother’s name is on the list of missing persons. I couldn’t find him in any hospital. These people are not allowing me inside the factory to check,” he said.
Another man said his uncle was working in the factory at the time of the explosion. “I am not able to trace him and there is none to answer my query as to where I can find him or his body,” he said.
The district administration has set up a help desk at the factory premises to note down the details of the missing persons from their relatives who came there for enquiry. Forensic teams are racing against time to complete DNA tests on the unidentified bodies.
“We shall try to identify the bodies and match their DNA samples with the relatives, so that we can hand over the bodies to the right persons,” a forensic department official from Osmania General Hospital said.
