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People burn crackers during 'Diwali' celebrations, in Vijayawada on Sunday. (PTI)[/caption]
New Delhi, Oct. 28 (PTI): At least nine people were killed in fireworks related incidents, including gutting of houses and shops, on Diwali across the country, while scores of others poured into hospitals with burns, eye injuries and other complaints.
However, the decline in such casualties in the national capital since the Supreme Court imposed restrictions on sale of firecrackers in 2017 continued.
It was a busy night for the firefighters with the Delhi Fire Service (DFS) alone responding to over 300 calls, including fires at garbage dumps due to bursting crackers, officials said on Monday.
According to Sawai Man Singh Hospital in Jaipur, 498 patients with burns, eye injuries and other complaints due to firecrackers arrived in its OPD department out of which 142 were admitted and 108 were emergency cases.
As many as 31 patients have been treated for burn injuries at the Kilpauk Government Medical College Hospital in Chennai. Among them was a young man whose thumb and index finger were partially amputated.
In Hyderabad, two hospitals said that they provided treatment to 77 people for eye injuries they sustained while bursting crackers during Diwali celebrations, sources said on Monday.
Diwali revelry took a tragic turn in Kolkata when a five-year-old boy, Adi Das of Haridevpur area, and 40-year-old Deep Kumar Koley of Kasba died when they were hit on the neck by fragments of clay flowerpot crackers in separate incidents, police said.
Eyewitnesses claimed that the child was not lighting the firework and was only passing by with one of his relatives when the explosion took place and he was hit by the shrapnel
Koley, on the other hand, was himself lighting the firework, a police officer said.
Three persons were charred to death in a fire at a crackers shop in Chhattisgarh's Kondagaon district, police said.
The incident occurred in Kashi Sen's shop in Makdi village late Sunday night, a local police official said. The dead were identified as Sen and his two friends, Balram Netam and Shivlal Shrimali, who had pitched in to help him due to heavy rush of customers and had stayed at shop after it closed.
Four people were killed in firecrackers related incidents in Odisha.
Two other persons were killed in an explosion that took place when they were making firecrackers at Shyam Sundarpur in Ganjam district.
Sukhadev Monda, a government employee, was charred to death after his house caught fire due to firecrackers that landed on his house.
Four children were injured while burning firecrackers in Bhadrak district in the state while a youth was wounded in Sundargarh district.
There was a massive fire at Golbazar vegetable market in Sambalpur where 80 shops were damaged. Another blaze was reported at Khantapada in Balasore district in which a footwear shop was gutted. In Dhenkanal, a garment godown was destroyed due to fire