Highway fire toll rises to 13; 6-member SIT set up

The toll from Friday's catastrophic highway explosion rose to 13 on Saturday as authorities struggled to identify severely burned victims and searched for at least 13 missing people, while Rajasthan's high court demanded answers from officials about the circumstances that led to the disaster.

- Senjuti Sengupta, Dinesh Bothra and Sohail Khan [e-mail]

JAIPUR/UDAIPUR: The toll from Friday's catastrophic highway explosion rose to 13 on Saturday as authorities struggled to identify severely burned victims and searched for at least 13 missing people, while Rajasthan's high court demanded answers from officials about the circumstances that led to the disaster.

Two more people succumbed on Saturday as doctors at SMS Hospital battled to save 27 others, including seven on ventilator support. The mounting casualties have been accompanied by growing questions about how a known dangerous stretch of highway was allowed to remain hazardous despite repeated warnings.

The toll on Friday was mistakenly concluded as 12 instead of 11 because one body was split in two parts, police said. However, police received reports from the Forensic Science Laboratory which helped identify that body. As of Saturday evening, there were four unidentified bodies in the mortuary.

"The bodies are not in a condition to be identified by the families that have come forward," said Bhankrota station house officer Manish Gupta. "DNA profiling is the only way for us now to trace them." Police have collected DNA samples from unidentified victims and sent them to the FSL.

Dr Deepak Maheshwari, principal of SMS medical college, described the ongoing medical crisis: "Of the total patients, seven are on ventilators. The rest have sustained 50% burns and their conditions are not good".