By Alok Mohit
Patna, August 6: Four persons died and more than 20 others injured after an LPG cylinder exploded on a motorised country boat in the middle of Ganga river near Patna on Saturday, an official said.
The incident took place at Rampur Diara of Maner, on the outskirts of Patna, due to leakage of LPG from the cylinder while people on board the boat were cooking food.
Officials said those killed and injured were mostly labourers engaged in transportation of sand illegally extracted from the riverbeds.
One of the dead was from Jharkhand while the rest were local residents, the officials added.
As the motorised country boat did not drown in the river after the explosion, the sailors managed to bring it to the banks of the river at Maner. The injured had been admitted to a hospital in Maner.
Majority of motorised country boats are run by the powerful sand mafia and used for transportation of illegally mined sand in the region.
