The Southern Railway said that an “illegal gas cylinder” on board led to the fire. The passengers of the “private party coach” had arrived from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

Madurai district collector MS Sangeetha, who rushed to the station to enquire, said 10 persons were killed in the fire accident in the train compartment. 20 people with injuries have been admitted to a hospital for treatment.

“10 persons reported dead,” in the fire, a Southern Railway release said.

Police, fire and rescue services personnel besides railway staff, involved in dousing the fire, extricated the charred bodies from the compartment.

The fire broke out at 5:15 am today and the fire service personnel who arrived at the spot half an hour later put down the blaze by 7:15 am, a Southern Railway release said.

“This is a private party coach that was attached at Nagercoil Junction yesterday (Aug 25) by train no. 16730 (Punalur-Madurai Exp). Party coach was detached and kept at Madurai Stabling line. The passengers in the private party coach have….smuggled gas cylinder and this has caused the fire,” the release said.

The party coach had started the journey from Lucknow on August 17, scheduled to return to Chennai on Sunday and return to Lucknow from there, it added.

“While the coach was stabled/parked, some members of the party in the private party coach were using the illegally smuggled cooking gas cylinder unauthorisedly for preparing tea/snacks, which caused the fire in the stabled/parked coach. Most of the passengers could get out of the coach on noticing fire. Some passengers had already got down at platform also before detachment of coach,” it added.

An amount of ₹ 10 lakh was being paid to each of the family of those who died, it said.

Any individual can book party coach using IRCTC portal. They are not allowed to carry any inflammable material like gas cylinder. The coach is to used only for transportation purpose, the release said, adding senior officials were rushing to the spot.

The post 10 killed, over 20 hurt in Madurai train fire appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

Confined in one of the busy streets of Madurai in Tamil Nadu is this little kiosk where a tea seller serves a variety of tea in edible, chocolate-flavoured biscuit cups. This is not a part of a Malgudi Days- kind fiction story.

For about a month now RS Pathy Nilgiri Tea Kiosk owned by Vivek Sabaapathy, located in Madurai, has been selling tea in edible cups. The owner claims that the kiosk has sold nearly 500 cups a day.

Priced at Rs 20, the edible cups can hold 60 ml of hot tea for about 10 minutes. Once the tea is over, people can devour the wafer cups that might taste as a biscuit dipped in tea.

Ever since Tamil Nadu Government imposed a ban on plastic in January 2019, Sabaapathy has been looking for eco-friendly alternatives to serve the tea in his kiosk. That’s when he came to know about a Hyderabad-based company who makes these cups.

As expected, people in the city love the environment-friendly alternative to plastic. People found it safe, hygienic and a little more filling than the regular cup of tea, and are also happy about its zero-waste value.

Sabaapathy is really happy with the customer reviews of the cups and hopes the manufacturing company can come up with multiple flavours of the biscuit cup soon.

All praises for Vivek Sabaapathy for being responsible of the environmental crisis and looking for a safer option.

Hope more people come up with similar innovative alternatives to plastic products.

The post Drink tea and eat the cup too appeared first on The Gulf Indians.