Investigators are examining whether the licensed unit was operating in violation of safety rules and holiday restrictions when the blast tore through the site.
VIRUDHUNAGAR, India — A powerful explosion at a fireworks factory in southern India killed at least 25 people and injured several others on Sunday, ripping through a licensed unit in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district and triggering a second blast during rescue work later that evening.
The disaster has become one of the region’s deadliest industrial accidents in recent years and renewed scrutiny of a fireworks belt that has repeatedly faced safety questions. Officials said the Vanaja Fireworks unit at Kattanarpatti was not supposed to be operating on a Sunday, yet dozens of workers were on site when the blast struck around midafternoon. By Monday, police were pursuing factory officials, hospital staff were still treating survivors, and the Madras High Court was set to hear the matter after a lawyer asked judges to step in.
Authorities said the first explosion happened at about 3 p.m. on Sunday as workers were handling materials inside the unit near Kattanarpatti village. Fire and rescue crews, police and ambulances were sent to the scene as flames spread through the complex and explosions continued to erupt. A local police officer said, “The explosion was so powerful that three rooms were reduced to rubble,” describing damage that extended beyond the immediate work sheds. Early casualty figures rose through the day as bodies were recovered from debris and badly burned survivors were moved to the Virudhunagar Government Medical College Hospital. Rescue work grew more dangerous after another blast broke out at about 7:20 p.m. while heavy machinery was clearing rubble, sending rescuers and other personnel scrambling for cover and forcing officials to slow the search.
Officials said the factory held a valid license, but investigators are examining whether that license was breached by the way the unit was being run. Reports from district authorities and local media said between about 50 and 100 people may have been at the site, well above the number the unit was allowed to employ at one time. Most of the dead were women, and many of them came from nearby villages where fireworks work is a major source of wages. By Monday, officials said most of the victims had been identified, though some bodies were so badly charred that the process remained slow. At least six injured people were still being treated, according to district authorities, and some of the most seriously hurt had suffered extensive burns. The second blast also injured 13 people involved in response work, including police and fire personnel. Local witness Ranganathan, quoted in PTI video coverage, said, “Nothing was recognisable,” as bodies were loaded into vehicles from the destroyed site.
The explosion also laid bare how deeply the fireworks industry is woven into life in this part of Tamil Nadu and how often that dependence collides with lax enforcement. Virudhunagar district, which includes Sivakasi and surrounding villages, has long been a major center of India’s fireworks trade, with thousands of families tied directly or indirectly to the business through factory work, transport, packaging and seasonal orders. That economic dependence has also meant that safety failures recur with grim regularity. Just six days before the Kattanarpatti blast, another fireworks unit near Sattur in the same district exploded, killing one worker and injuring nine others. In 2024, separate accidents in the district killed 10 workers in February and four more in June. Each case drew promises of tighter oversight, but investigators and lawyers continue to point to a familiar pattern of illegal operations, overstaffed units, rushed chemical handling and weak enforcement of rules meant to separate dangerous work from crowded production areas.
Police action moved in several directions on Monday. Authorities said a criminal case had been filed under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Explosives Act, and special teams were formed to trace factory officials who had not been found. Reports from district officials said the license was held by Eshwari and her husband, Muthumanickam, and that investigators were also reviewing whether the unit had been sub-leased, which would raise another possible violation. Officials said they were examining whether workers had been mixing chemicals outside the hours normally allowed for that process. District Collector N.O. Sukhaputra said the unit should not have been operating on Sunday and that inspections were being expanded at other fireworks facilities in the district. Relief measures also moved ahead. The Tamil Nadu government announced compensation of 500,000 rupees for each family of the dead, while the Union government announced 200,000 rupees from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund. The collector said officials would speed up death certificates and legal-heir documents so families could receive the payments. A division bench of the Madras High Court called for a state response and set the matter for hearing on Tuesday.
Outside hospitals and in villages that lost multiple workers, grief quickly turned into anger. In Servaikaranpatti, where many of the victims were from, relatives gathered in large numbers and some refused to accept bodies immediately, saying the compensation announced so far was too little for families that had lost breadwinners. Road blockades and protests added pressure on district officials already facing questions about how a licensed unit could be working on a weekly closure day with so many people inside. Political leaders from the ruling party and the opposition visited hospitals, offered condolences and demanded accountability, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister M.K. Stalin publicly expressed sorrow over the deaths. At the government hospital, officials were trying to manage both the medical emergency and the paperwork that follows a mass-casualty event, while villagers waited for postmortem results and identification updates. The scene remained one of smoke-blackened debris, shattered walls and stunned families trying to understand how a routine workday ended in one of the district’s worst factory disasters.
By Monday night, the death toll stood at 25, six injured people were still under treatment, and police had yet to publicly account for all those responsible for running the unit. The next major milestones were Tuesday’s court hearing and the outcome of the criminal investigation, which is expected to focus on staffing levels, chemical handling and license violations.