Balasore: A huge explosion occurred in the wee hours of Thursday night at the three-storey residence of Kalicharan Mohapatra, at Achyutpur village of Remuna panchayat in this district. The entire roof has been blown off due to the explosion and the third floor has suffered substantial damages.
The owner of the building Kalicharan Mohapatra was sleeping with his family in the ground floor. He had rented out the first and second floors. The first floor was occupied by a family from Bihar while on the top floor a mason stayed alone. He has gone missing since the explosion.
The explosion which occurred around 1.00am in the morning woke up the neighbours also. Cars kept outside the building also suffered damages as heaps of rubble fell on them.
Sub divisional police officer Prabhas Chandra Pal, industrial area police station inspector in-charge Jayant Kumar Behera and a forensic team visited the house after they were informed about the incident Thursday morning. While the exact cause of the incident is yet to be ascertained, it is believed that the blast may have occurred due to a faulty LPG cylinder. It should also be stated here that a large pile of firecrackers had been kept on the top floor.
PNN