The blast, which occured at one of the residential quarters inside the PHC campus at Kalyanpuri near Kanpur city was so powerful that the entire building came down like a pack of cards trapping over a dozen people, including women and children under the debris.
While two persons were killed on the spot, two others succumbed to their injuries in the hospital, police here said adding that some of the injured were being treated at different hospitals in Kanpur.

Over ten people were later rescued from the rubble, officials said suspecting that there could have been an illegal cracker manufacturing unit at one of the quarters, which might have exploded. “Some desi crackers and gunpowder have been recovered from the site of the blast,” they said.

According to the police, the blast took place at the quarter of one Rajesh Gautam, a ward boy at the PHC, who is absconding after the explosion. The building had residential houses for the employees of the centre.

“The building housing the PHC is safe and was not affected by the blast,” the officials said ruling out terror.This is the second such blast in Kanpur district within a span of six days. On Saturday last, three people, including a woman, were killed in a powerful blast at an illegal cracker manufacturing unit in Bithoor area in the district. On the same day, five people were killed and over a dozen injured seriously when a blast occurred at an illegal cracker manufacturing unit in UP’s Maharajganj district.

Illegal fire cracker manufacturing units have mushroomed in the state owing largely to the laxity on the part of the police and other officials and every year scores of people are killed in blasts at them.