TAXILA, June 27: As many as four persons were killed and 40 injured, five of them critically, when a huge fire broke out at a cement factory in Hattar Industrial Estate.

Police and fire brigade sources told this correspondent that the fire was triggered by a blast in a furnace plant of the factory around 8:30pm on Saturday night. The flames quickly trapped more than 50 factory workers.

On receiving information about the incident, fire-engines from Haripur, Wah Cantonment and HMC Taxila reached the site and succeeded in extinguishing the fire after five hours of continuous efforts.

The injured were shifted to the POF hospital, Wah Cantonment, where two of them were pronounced dead on their arrival. The deceased, Mohammad Rafeeq and Ghulam Abbas, had received 95 per cent burns.

Later, two other injured also succumbed to their injuries at the hospital's burn unit. They were identified as Shakeel and Mohammad Arif.

According to the Duty Medical Officer, five of the injured admitted to the hospital were in critical condition with over 80 per cent burns.

Talking to this correspondent, the medical officer said over 35 people with 30 to 50 per cent burn injuries were shifted to different hospital of Rawalpindi and Islamabad due to a few number of beds in the burn unit. An official of the cement factory, Aqeel, when contacted, suggested that the blast might have occurred owing to some electrical fault. However, he confirmed that over 40 people, mostly working at the furnace plant, suffered serious injuries.