Three girls playing around a garbage bonfire die of ‘gas poisoning’ in Gujarat Surat

The girls playing by the fire started vomiting. (Representative)

Sura:

On Friday evening, five girls were having fun around a bonfire in Surat, Gujarat. Hours later, three people were dead, and two survivors could tell the horrific story that led to their deaths.

The group gathered around a bonfire made of garbage burning in an open field in a Pali village in the Sachin district. The girls began vomiting after inhaling smoke from the flames and fainted shortly afterwards. They were all taken to a private hospital, where three of them – Durga Mahanto (12), Amita Mahanto (14) and Anita Mahanto (8) – died.

“While they were warming up, the girls started vomiting and lost consciousness. They were rushed to hospital where three of them died,” said Sachin GIDC-1 Police Inspector JR Chaudhari.

A police official said that the exact cause of death would be known after preparing a post-mortem report and conducting forensic tests. “Prima facie, the cause appears to be inhalation of poisonous gas,” he said.

Durga Mahanto’s aunt claimed that she was first taken to Navsari Civil Hospital, but the staff allegedly asked them to leave the hospital around 1 am. They then took her to another hospital, where she died around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Durga Mahanto’s father Ram Pravesh Mahanto said that after taking medicines, the condition of one of the children improved, but Durga’s condition kept deteriorating. “I don’t even know how it happened. “When I came home from work, I saw the girls and then I took them to the hospital,” he said.

He claimed that Navsari hospital staff told them that the girls needed to be tested but that the blood test results would only be received on Monday as the laboratory was closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

Medical director of Surat Civil Hospital, Dr Ketan Naik, said the girls could have fallen ill due to inhalation of toxic fumes.

He said that some of the girls also ate ice cream at night, so there was also a risk of food poisoning.

“The situation will become clear after the autopsy and forensic examination,” he added.

(With contributions from Mahendra Kumar)