For Thumpala Lova, 38, the morning of February 28 was like any other, recalls her son Narendra. She woke up before dawn to devotional songs drifting from the 9th-century Kumara Bhimeswaraswamy temple on the outskirts of Vetlapalem village in Kakinada district, Andhra Pradesh. Trains rumbled along the tracks behind their house.

Within an hour, Lova had cooked lunch for herself and for Narendra, a 20-year-old construction worker. Wearing her favourite rose-coloured saree, she set out to work.

By 8 a.m., Narendra, who drove a two-wheeler, dropped her off near the irrigation canal that branches out from the Godavari river. Lova waded through the shallow waters to reach Sri Surya Fireworks, where she earned ₹450 a day. The construction site where Narendra worked was barely 100 metres from the firecracker unit. His wages contributed to keeping the family afloat.

That afternoon, soon after lunch at around 2:10, Narendra heard an explosion. Then, two more in quick succession. A deafening roar rose from the direction of Sri Surya Fireworks. In seconds, the complex was reduced to rubble.

The force of the blasts hurled bodies across the landscape. Some landed in the irrigation canal; others were flung into surrounding paddy fields. Of the 31 workers present at the site, 20 died on the spot. Eight workers succumbed to injuries in hospital. Three survivors are on ventilator support at the Government General Hospital in Kakinada.

Within hours of the blast, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu visited the site and met grieving families at the community health centre in Samarlakota. He announced ₹20 lakh ex gratia for each deceased worker’s family, along with housing, educational support, and livelihood assistance. He said that the accused would face charges that could attract life imprisonment and that their properties might be auctioned to compensate victims. Home Minister V. Anitha and District Collector S. Shan Mohan handed over cheques to families.

Searching for survivors

When he heard the blast, Narendra ran to the spot. Dense black smoke engulfed the site. Villagers rushed in before emergency teams arrived, guided by screams for help.

“There were ashes and broken sheds. A fire was raging. There was also a suffocating smell of sulphur and burnt flesh,” Narendra remembers. Then his voice breaks and he adds: “I saw a half-burnt body in a rose-coloured saree. I knew it was my mother.”

He handed over his mother’s remains to disaster response personnel. There was no time to process the tragedy or grieve; he joined the village youth in searching for survivors. “No one in the main unit survived,” he says.

The police later deployed drones to scan fields and canal banks for scattered remains. Two days later, forensic teams say they recovered the head of a woman worker from a paddy field. The dead and injured belonged to Vetlapalem, G. Medapadu, and Samarlakota — villages within a 5-kilometre radius of the unit.

Preliminary investigations suggest that the fire originated in the explosive mixing unit. “A spark or friction during mixing likely triggered the ignition,” says a senior police official. Inspector General of Police (Eluru Range) G.V.G. Ashok Kumar confirmed that the blaze began in the mixing section before spreading rapidly to other sheds, where finished products and raw materials were stored in large quantities.

The Regional Fire Officer (Krishna-Godavari Region), E. Swamy, says materials such as potassium nitrate, barium nitrate, sulphur, charcoal, aluminium powder, starch, and metal salts were being used that day. Some of these chemicals can be dangerous if they are not mixed in proper ratios or are not handled properly.

Women workers are typically engaged in packing and post-production tasks. The explosion’s force spared no one. Many of the injured survivors remain unable to recount the incident, still traumatised and fighting for their lives.

The Vetlapalem blast is not an isolated incident. According to the Andhra Pradesh Disaster Response and Fire Services Department, 69 people have died in 12 firecracker unit explosions since 2014 in the erstwhile districts of Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, and Krishna. On October 20, 2014, following the mishandling of sulphur, charcoal, and nitrates, which triggered an explosion, 18 workers were burnt alive in Pithapuram.

In 2025 alone, 46 lives were lost in three such blasts across Anakapalli, Kakinada, and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema districts.

After the blast in Konaseema district last October, the government constituted a two-member inquiry committee. Most of the rules prescribed by it were reportedly not followed by the cracker unit in Kakinada.

This time too, a two-member committee headed by S. Suresh Kumar, Principal Secretary (Municipal Administration and Urban Development), and Ake Ravikrishna of the Elite Anti-Narcotics Group for Law Enforcement has been constituted to probe the incident. The forensic report is awaited.

Shattered dreams

For Devi, 22, the loss of her mother Lova has come as a shock. “My mother wanted me to complete graduation. She dreamed of my marriage this year,” she says. “Now that dream is gone.”

In another lane of Vetlapalem, sisters Usha Rani and Chandra Kala mourn their mother, Nookalla Devi, 48. Widowed two years ago, Devi had joined Sri Surya in 2023 to support her family.

Years earlier, Devi had survived a head injury at a rice mill and 20 stitches marked her scalp. Those scars helped the family in identifying her charred body.

“She called me thrice a day,” Rani says. “On Saturday, she had called after lunch and asked if I had eaten. She said she was going to speak to my children in the evening.”

In Gudaparthi area, barely 100 metres away, the asbestos roofs of over 100 homes were damaged. Many residents say they initially thought an earthquake had struck.

“Around 1:45 (p.m.), my brother got a call from the owner asking him to return early from lunch,” says G. Saibaba, brother of 26-year-old Godatha Naani, who died in the explosion. “Minutes later, we heard the blast.”

Naani’s cousin Mahesh, 41, and maternal aunt Mandapalli Chinni, 44, also died. They were among eight Dalits from the Madiga community who lost their lives.

In G. Medapadu, both Gampala Nagaraju, 47, and his wife Pebodda Managa, 44, died. “My father’s phone rang three times when I called after hearing of the blast,” says their son, Venkata Ramana. “On the fourth ring, it stopped ringing. That is when I knew.”

Flouting norms

Sri Surya Fireworks, spread over half an acre, was established in 2023 by the Adabala family. It was the largest among six units in Vetlapalem. One of the members of the family, Adabala Srinivasa Rao, 55, died in the blast. His sons, Arjun, 29 and Verababu, 31, survived and were arrested on March 2.

Officials allege that the unit had licence to use only 15 kilogrammes of explosive material per day and to employ a maximum of eight workers. Instead, it employed 31 workers. “Nearly 200 kg of raw and finished materials were stored on site,” says Peddapuram Fire Station Officer M. Srihari Jagannath. “The rush was driven by orders worth ₹6 lakh from a local temple festival, along with additional wedding contracts.”

The Peddapuram fire station officer, M. Srihari Jagannath, says the unit had been inspected on January 13, 2025, and had been instructed not to resume production without clearance. “The entire operation — procurement, storage and employment — was illegal,” he says.

Operational guidelines mandate a 45-m separation between manufacturing sheds and storage areas. That norm, too, was violated, said the Labour and Factories Minister Vasamsetty Subhash to The Hindu.

Subhash acknowledged serious breaches. Andhra Pradesh has 488 licensed firecracker units, many of which have sought relaxation of safety norms. The government, he said, had firmly turned down these requests.

The earlier committee had outlined a two-pronged strategy comprising broad policy reforms and detailed operational standard operating procedures (SOPs). Central to its recommendations was the creation of a single digital platform — the Andhra Pradesh Fireworks Licensing and Monitoring System — to integrate licensing, inspections, and compliance oversight across all relevant departments.

The committee made it compulsory for joint inspections to be carried out by the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), Fire Services, the Labour Department, and the district administration, with inspection reports required to be uploaded within 48 hours.

It also proposed the introduction of a unified Fireworks Operation Licence, along with risk-based classification of units and the development of a Fireworks Risk Index to identify and prioritise high-risk establishments. It suggested zoning reforms to enforce a mandatory 500-m buffer between firecracker units and residential areas. Units failing to meet these norms were to be mapped and shifted to compliant locations.

To strengthen district-level oversight, the committee recommended constituting a District Fireworks Safety Committee under the chairmanship of the district collector. The committee was to conduct quarterly inspections, maintain a district-level risk register, and exercise powers under Rule 118 of the Explosives Rules, 2008, to suspend licences in cases of repeated violations, including breaches of electrical safety standards.

On the operational front, the SOPs mandated strict segregation of processes such as mixing, filling, drying, and storage into separate sheds. They prescribed adherence to worker limits in each shed, the use of non-sparking tools, installation of flame-proof electrical fittings, and prompt transfer of finished products to designated magazines. Employment was to be restricted to certified workers above 18 years of age, with compulsory training, use of personal protective equipment, and appointment of a PESO-approved competent foreman.

Additionally, it said units must install CCTV surveillance systems, along with automatic heat and smoke detection systems. It also mandated maintaining adequate water storage, fire extinguishers, lightning arresters and conducting biannual mock drills.

The compliance framework further included digital stock registers, QR-coded licence display boards, geo-tagged inspections, compulsory insurance coverage, third-party safety audits, environmental clearances, and sustained community awareness initiatives to ensure transparency and accountability.

Lives on edge

Vetlapalem once thrived on sago factories. There were roughly 60 units in 2004-05; today, fewer than half a dozen remain operational. Rising costs and environmental compliance requirements shut the rest down, according to residents. With few alternatives, workers turned to firecracker manufacturing.

Godatha Syamala, who lost her husband Mahesh, now faces an uncertain future. “My husband was our only breadwinner. I stayed home to raise our children. Where will I find work now? The sago factories are closed. Do I return to a firecracker unit,” she asks. Her children are in Classes 10 and 8.

Mandapalli Chinni’s daughter, Suvarna Sweety, got married in January. “My mother survived three earlier accidents in firecracker units,” she says. “On Saturday, she even came home in the morning to collect her widow pension,” she says. In fact, it was pension day that may have saved at least 20 other women who were absent from work that afternoon.

Her mother then went back to the unit, Sweety says. “It was as if death was waiting.”