At least 12 people killed as fireball ignites tragedy in Jaipur crash horror
Security camera footage from a nearby residence captured the moment of explosion, showing the fire sweeping through streets, engulfing structures in its path.
A catastrophic chain of events unfolded on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway early on Friday when a truck crashed into an LPG tanker taking a U-turn, triggering a fireball that engulfed close to 34 vehicles, killing at least 12 people and leaving several more battling for their lives with severe burn injuries, while 14 people were unaccounted for.
“The Jaipur-bound tanker was coming from Ajmer and tried to take a U-turn from the highway to move towards the Agra Road”, said Jaipur Police commissioner Biju George Joseph. “While taking the turn, an Ajmer-bound truck from Jaipur suddenly appeared and hit it from behind. The collision caused a gas leak and it immediately caught fire. Rest of the mishap took only 10 to 15 minutes.”
Within two minutes of the initial collision, the leaking gas ignited, causing a massive blast that spread rapidly across hundreds of metres. Security camera footage from a nearby residence captured the moment of explosion at 5:25am, showing the fire sweeping through streets, engulfing structures in its path.
“When the fire brigade reached the spot at 6am, everything was already turned into ashes. It looked like a ghost town with burnt trucks, and vehicles standing everywhere on the highway and the cry for people asking for help could be heard at every part of the town”, said a fire officer from the Bais Godam fire brigade, which dispatched five vehicles to the scene.
The fire destroyed 34 vehicles, including 10 containers, seven trailers, five trucks, eight four-wheelers, two pickups, and two sleeper buses, according to Health Department officials. Two passengers from one of the sleeper buses, travelling to Udaipur, were among the dead, while passengers in the second bus escaped with injuries.
First responders struggled to gain control of the fire for several hours. “The biggest challenge to work in the area was to deal with both the gas and fire”, the fire officer said. “We had to be fully equipped with wearing masks and other protective measures to enter the place. It took us almost 8 hours to take control of the fire. When we returned by 2pm, we were totally exhausted.”
The violence of the explosion was particularly evident in its toll on the vehicles’ occupants. “The blast was so intense that the bodies of the drivers of the truck and the tanker were turned almost into ashes,” said an official from the mortuary. “The fire brigade recovered some mutilated parts of their bodies which were shifted to the mortuary. We could not identify them yet.”
Witnesses reported seeing the resulting fireball from nearly a kilometre away. A school van driver, who was en route to pick up students, described the horrifying scene to PTI: “I saw people running in haste and shouting for help. I saw a man engulfed in flames. It was a frightening scene.”
As a result of the inferno, authorities struggled to identify some of the victims and crucial information such as who the truck and the tanker involved in the initial collision belonged to. Authorities also said they were trying to determine details of passengers in two private sleeper buses that caught fire.
Of the eleven known deaths, the identities of some five bodies were unidentified and at least 14 people were unaccounted for, state health department officials said later on Friday.
Dr Deepak Maheshwari, principal of SMS Medical College, provided details of the casualties: “At least five people were died on the spot while four others died during the treatment in the hospital. So far, we received 32 more people in a critical condition including two who were rescued after 1.30pm.” He added that of the total patients, “at least six are under the ventilation while 12 are critical with 60% burn injuries. Rest of the victims also have majorly 50% burn injuries and their condition is not good.”
State health minister Gajendra Singh Khimsar outlined the emergency response: “Around five beds are left in our critical burn ward. We have prepared another ward of 40 beds”, he said. “The traffic corridor has been completely open for the injured people to come to SMS Hospital. According to the police and administration, maximum people have already reached the hospital”.
Chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma rushed to the scene and later visited the hospital. “The death of the civilians due to a massive fire broke out from a tanker on the Ajmer-Jaipur highway is a disheartening incident”, he said. “I have directed the SMS authorities to provide the patients with immediate medical facilities and treat them. The state and local administration is working on a emergency mode in the area to rescue the people”.
The state government announced compensation of ₹5 lakh for families of the deceased and ₹1 lakh for the injured. Prime Minister Narendra Modi separately declared additional compensation of ₹2 lakh for the bereaved families from the PM National Relief Fund.
The devastating crash serves as a grim reminder of the persistent dangers on India’s highways, where a combination of poor infrastructure, overcrowding, and lax enforcement of safety regulations continues to claim lives at an alarming rate. Despite government initiatives to improve road safety, India records the highest number of fatalities in road accidents in the world, with a significant portion involving commercial vehicles and on highways.
In 2023, there were 178,000 such deaths. Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari on December 12 told Lok Sabha that instead of improving, India’s record on road safety has worsened. “Forget about reducing the number of accidents, I have no hesitation to admit that it has been increased. When I go to attend international conferences where there is a discussion on road accidents, I try to hide my face,” he said.
Police have registered a case under section 281 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita for negligent driving. “It is yet not clear what negligence led to this mishap. Further investigation is underway”, said Bhankrota SHO Manish Gupta, according to PTI.