Fire brigade officials said the blast possibly took place because of the mixing of chemicals at the workshop, which are used for making the fibre glass.

The deceased were identified as Chandrakant Gandale (35) of Narhe in Haveli taluka and Depak Chaban Thakur (20) of Velhe taluka. The injured included Shrikant Shamdas, Suman Shamdas, Pramod Yadav and Vijay Chandrakant Kamble. Two fire tenders and a water tanker were pressed into action. The fire brigade, which was summoned at the company, extinguished the flames within 15 minutes of the incident.

Assistant divisional officer Prashant Ranpise of Fire Brigade said that there were two severe explosions in the workshop which stretches to about 750 square feet area. There were 10 workers at the workshop. Of them, two died on the spot, while three received severe injuries. The remaining escaped without injuries as they were out of the workshop for some work.

“Owner of the company Amod Vinay Modak told us that there were mainly three chemicals that can cause a major explosion if mixed," Ranpise said.

The injured Shrikant Ramdas, who was admitted to Sassoon Hospital, said that the explosion took place when he was opening the lid of a jar containing resin chemical with a welding tool. The incident sent shockwaves in the region following the deafening noise of the explosion.

The fire brigade officials claimed that tragedy could have been avoided if necessary precautionary measures were taken while handling the chemicals at the workshop.