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Suratgarh army ammunition depot fire put off

About 2,500 army personnel were engaged in the operation to douse the fire, which broke out in the depot on Thursday, and secure the area. An area of about 10 km radius around the depot, which stored heavy and medium ammunitions, had been cordoned off.

About 3,000 villagers, shifted to safer places from nearby hamlets, heaved a sigh of relief as the sound of blasts and big fire balls rising in the air from the burning depot stopped.

No civilian authority was being allowed inside the affected areas, the sources said.

The Bikaner-Ganganagar National Highway was reopened to traffic while the Bikaner-Bhatinda broad gauge rail section still remained closed.

Official sources said sections of the Indira Gandhi canal and the Suratgarh Thermal Power project, which are in close proximity to the mishap site, were safe.

The splinters of rockets and bombs, which exploded due to the fire, damaged some houses in nearby villages.

Residents of nearby villages said that two to five feet long splinter pieces fell in a 10-km radius.

The worst affected was Rajpura-Piperan village and a few small hamlets, within a range of two km from the depot. Pieces of missiles were also found on the Bikaner-Ganganagar National Highway.

However, no civilian casualty has been reported.

As soon as the fire broke out, army jawans evacuated residents of Piperan, Udaipur, Biradhwal, Ardarpura Ladana, Ranyanwali and some other hamlets and lodged them in Suratgarh town and Somasar village where voluntary agencies were assisting the district administration in providing food and other facilities, they said.

Villagers have been warned by the police that handling of the ammunitions, flung around in the vicinity of the depot, would be risky as they are still live.

One army jawan lost his life and five others were injured in the fire, the sources added.

Army experts have reached the site to assess the damage caused by the fire, police said.

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