KOHAT: Two labourers died and one was seriously injured in a gas cylinder explosion during welding at a warehouse in Kohat Cement Company here on Friday.

Bilitang police said they reached KCC after receiving information about the blast and found Qasim and Khizar Hayat, both hailing from Mianwali, dead. They said one Rizwan of Sahiwal was injured in the incident.

They said that they shifted the bodies and the injured to the KDA hospital where doctors referred the wounded to Peshawar. The deceased were moved to their home districts by the KCC management. A case of the incident has been filed.

Meanwhile, fire gutted 16 shops in a cloth market located near the shrine of Hazrat Haji Bahadar in Sarafa Bazaar, causing big losses to the traders on Friday.

The shopkeepers knew about the inferno late due to closure of bazaars after much damage had been done.

The fire engines of Rescue 1122 and TMA extinguished the blaze in about one hour.

A shopkeeper Gul Agha complained that if the TMA engines had arrived in time they could have been saved from heavy losses.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2021