Twelve people had died in the blast triggered off by a collision between a chemical-laden tanker and a truck. The driver of the tanker, identified as Dada Kenjale, is absconding and the Turbhe police have registered a case.Naseeruddin Mujawar Walisaheb (30), who is recovering at the NMMC hospital, today said it was like coming back from ``hell.'' His grandmother Jabeeda Begum has come all the way from Gulbarga to look after the ``only earning member of the family.'' She constantly sought assurances from doctors, nurses and wardboys that Naseeruddin would survive.

Naseeruddin, a construction worker and a resident of Govandi slums, said the tanker had turned turtle andwas already ablaze when the truck in which he was travelling rammed into it. ``Our driver, Anees Ahmed Ansari (who along with another injured is fighting for his life at Sion Hospital) tried to swerve the truck but its right corner crashed into the burning tanker,'' he said, adding that the ``impact sent the truck careening 50 metres before it burst into flames.''

Nandkumar Kirdat, a resident of Nagesh Patil Wadi, Ghatla village, Chembur, too survived but lost five of his family - his brother Sakharam Kirdat (40), his sister-in-law Vasanti (36), his niece (3) and brothers-in-law Kamal (45) and Dattatray Nalawade (38). They were on their way to Javali, Satara to attend a wedding. A neighbour, who had gone to see them off, said they boarded the Madras bound-tanker carrying 12,000 litres of hexene and eight other passengers at the Maitri Park, Chembur at around 11 pm. ``We generally travel by tankers or trucks because apart from being cheap it is also comfortable,'' the neighbour, Ashok Shirsat, said addingthat the same was true about most of the slum-dwellers in Shivaji Nagar and Siddharth Nagar who hail from South Maharashtra. The police, meanwhile, have still not been able to establish the identity of six of the dead. ``Two bodies are so badly charred that we will need fornesic experts' assistance to establish their gender,'' says PSI Shri Hari Patil of the Turbhe police.

Both fire and police officials concur that this was the first mishap of its kind. ``In spite of the concentration of hazardous chemical industries in the Thane-Belapur belt there have luckily been no such tragedies before,'' Patil said. But residents and office-goers in the vicinity say they don't feel safe any more. Medha Puranik who works in a private concern at Belapur said, ``Now I panic everytime a chemical tanker is near our bus.'' The blast also burnt the main cable of an MSEB sub-station nearby. According to Ravi Kannan, an electrician attached to the sub-station, ``It would take two days for the supply to resume.''

PSIJaysingh Patil of the Turbhe police was all praise for a resident Indrajit Singh who at a great risk to his life helped pull out the injured and rush them to hospitals. ``I knew that there was little I could for those dead...I concentrated on rescuing thr injured,'' said Singh. Another good samaritan was a motorman who stopped his train to carry two injured to the Belapur station. ``He also arranged for some railway employees to carry us to the hospital,'' said Kirdat. ``It was like God had come in his form,'' he added fighting to hold back his tears.