Jaipur: Much to everyone’s surprise, the driver of the tanker carrying Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), which sparked off the fire on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway, is among the few people who managed to stay unhurt in the tragedy. Cops have identified the driver as Jaiveer of Mathura. He has been summoned to Jaipur for questioning. Jaiveer jumped off the truck after the impact and started running towards Jaipur, cops said, as reported by NDTV. According to the report, the driver managed to be out of the danger zone before the gas from the tanker leaked. In the massive blast-fire, 14 people died and at least 23 sustained injuries.
The tanker driver had called the vehicle’s owner after the accident and alerted him about the crash, reports stated. Police now want to interrogate the driver to unearth what exactly happened on the fatal day.
Recalling the mishap
The LPG tanker had made a U-turn on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway. The U-turn was an open one due to a temporary arrangement to ease traffic amid construction works ongoing near the highway. At this point, a truck carrying bedsheets and coming from the opposite direction hit the tanker. The nozzles and safety valves on the tanker broke. Gas started leaking. Soon, a massive blast took place. There was also a fuel station nearby, where several vehicles parked got gutted. Many of the bodies are charred and cannot be identified.
Whom to blame?
Incomplete construction, sudden turns and a lack of traffic sense might have led to the accident, road safety experts told PTI. “The stretch of the Jaipur-Ajmer highway where the crash occurred is an accident-prone spot, with poor traffic management and ongoing construction creating hazardous conditions,”said George Cheriyan, a prominent voice of Road Safety Network in India told PTI.
