HYDERABAD: Women wail inconsolably inside a home as a large crowd gathers outside their door to receive the bodies of two children.

This is a street in the Paretabad neighbourhood, and the children were among the 63 burn victims of a tragedy unprecedented in the city’s history.

On May 30, a powerful explosion at a gas cylinder shop has claimed the lives of 27 people so far, 19 of them children. A few of the injured still remain in critical condition, with the latest victim, a child, breathing their last on Saturday.

Just a few yards away on an adjacent street, another group of people sit under tents to condole with the grieving heirs of the deceased.

The residents of this bourgeoning neighbourhood mostly hail from the lower-middle class and struggle to make ends meet. Over the past couple of weeks, this locality has witnessed two or three children’s funerals nearly every single day since the day of the explosion.

A tragedy unparalleled in Hyderabad’s history, the Paretabad cylinder blast has claimed 27 lives so far, most of them children

A visit to Paretabad brings one face to face with so many heart-wrenching tales: the daily-wage worker who lost three children; the elderly labourer who lost his son and young grandson; the woman who runs a small food stall lost her only son.

Spark that lit an inferno

Zulfikar Behlum, an eyewitness to the tragedy, is sprawled on a bed in his home, recovering from moderate burn wounds.

“Being a cardiac patient and hypertensive, I fear staying in hospital. So, I returned home within an hour of being taken there,” he says, when asked why he chose to come home.

He recalls walking down the street before the explosion, and says he was stopped for a chat by the local councillor, Parveen Qazi.

“As we chatted, a cylinder from shop fell on the street, loosening its nozzle and releasing pressurised gas,” he said.

At that moment, a rag-picker named Doda arrived at the scene on his vehicle. “Doda’s attempts to kick-start his bike ignited a spark that caused the blast,” Zulfikar recalled.

“I had just arrived to unload a consignment of keri (unripe mangoes) when I saw the blast,” Munawar, who works nearby, recalled. “When I saw the fireball coming out of the shop, I was frozen and couldn’t move an inch. I saw people and children being engulfed by the fire,” he recounts, his voice trembling.

The small LPG shop, owned by Akram Arain, was located on the ground floor of the building, owned by Babuddin Qureshi. Akram suffered 100pc burns in the inferno and fought for his life for several days in hospital before finally succumbing.

But his final act of heroism is still remembered by the locals; he was able to bring two young boys out of his burning shop and managed to extinguish the cylinder that was fuelling the fire.

“Even with massive injuries, Akram somehow reached us,” his widow, Afroze, tells me from behind a veil. “He was in a terrible state and told me to pray,” she says, recalling that she fainted at the sight of him.

“Akram looked at me, tenderly touched our son, and told him not to lose spirit,” she managed, before her emotions overwhelmed her.

Secondary explosion

The ill-fated building where the explosion occurred was also teeming with children; some were playing on the street outside, others were filing out of a seminary located on another storey of the same building, while a number of children from a nearby tuition centre were also present.

There was not just one blast, and children who were playing on the road — who ran towards the site after hearing the explosion — fell prey to a secondary calamity. Locals said the second explosion was even more powerful than the first.

With poverty writ large on his face, men like Aleemuddin, a daily wager at a laundry shop, cherish their self-respect and dignity. Though struggling to put two square meals on the table, he looks to God for succour in these trying times.

The sexagenarian lost his 35-year-old son Raees, and 12-year-old grandson Azan. Raees’s mother and widow wailed uncontrollably. The father had just left their house in his rickshaw, accompanied by his son and the neighbour’s boy, Ayan Ali. Raees had stopped near the LPG shop to make some purchases and both boys were inside the shop when the blast ripped through it.

Ayan’s father Javed, a mason who lives opposite Raees’ house in this narrow street, initially didn’t know he was among injured.

Incidentally, Ayan and Azan were the two boys Akram managed to eject from his shop before being engulfed in flames himself.

“I recognised Ayan with his front tooth as his face, body and clothes were burnt,” Kashif, the boy’s uncle, tells Dawn.

Locals say the tragedy was compounded by the delayed arrival of the fire brigade, leaving the burnt children to suffer.

The whereabouts of the owner of the ill-fated building, Babuddin Qureshi — or Babu as he is known locally — and his family remain unknown, even though they have been booked by police in the FIR registered over the explosion.

The heirs of those killed or injured complain that despite the magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen them, no one from the Sindh or federal governments has visited to offer condolences or support.

However, residents spoke highly of the local MPA, Nasir Qureshi, crediting him with making tireless efforts to provide assistance since May 30.

The lawmaker told locals that the prime minister — who was travelling to China at the time — had been informed of the incident and might visit the area.

The only high-profile visit to the area so far came from the Sindh governor, who offered some financial assistance to the affected families.

Hospital woes

But the hardship did not end with the inferno; for families of the victims, the experience at the Liaquat University Hospital’s burns ward was another kind of hell.

Zeeshan, who lost three children — a son and two daughters — still looks shell-shocked. He holds his one-year-old daughter, who plays with a candy wrapper as he recounts their final moments.

“My daughter Aleesha kept telling me, ‘Papa, I’m in pain’, but the doctors at the burns ward just offered ointment and referred me to Karachi. That’s all they did,” he says, his voice welling up with sorrow.

Last week, five-year-old Kinza and teenage Aleesha were laid to rest. The week before, it was his son Ali Hyder.

“Kinza looked normal, but the doctors said she inhaled a lot of smoke and poisonous gas and kept vomiting before she breathed her last,” he recounted, still trying to come to terms with his unbearable loss.

Many complain that the burns unit was ill-equipped and facilities conspicuously absent, leading to chaos. “It was as if doomsday had arrived, nobody knew what to do or where to go. Attendants were running frantically from pillar to post,” one family member said.

Attendants claimed that many patients were referred to Karachi and other hospitals, while only the most stable ones were admitted.

This is ironic, since the burns ward at LUH was designed to be a state-of-the-art unit, rather than functioning as a referral facility.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2024