At least 11 people were killed, eight of them children, when a firecracker factory exploded in Kaushambi district of Uttar Pradesh in northern India (The Federal; Dawn; Khaleej Times).
The children were aged between four and 13.
How they died
The blast brought down several nearby houses. Most of those killed were residents of those homes rather than workers inside the unit — a distinction that matters, because it means the dead were people living next to an explosives store, not people who had chosen to work in one.
Police officer Satnarayan Prajapat confirmed the deaths. Several other people were injured.
The licence had already been cancelled
The factory’s licence was cancelled in 2024. A case has been registered at Pipri police station under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Explosives Act against six people, including the operator, named as Adil.
That is the substance of today’s development: the unit was operating without a valid licence, and had been for around two years.
Compensation
The state announced Rs2 lakh for the next of kin of each person killed and Rs50,000 for each of the injured.
A note on early figures
Some outlets initially reported a toll of five. The figure settled at 11 as bodies were recovered from the collapsed houses; the 11/eight-children breakdown is now carried consistently across Indian and Gulf outlets. The cause of the blast itself has not been established — police have not stated one.
The pattern
Industrial accidents of this kind recur in India, generally where safety rules are weakly enforced. A fire at a fireworks factory in western India in March killed 17 people, and a blaze at a firecracker storage facility in the south in April killed eight.
