​Fire and sound: The Hindu Editorial on Kerala’s Mundathikode tragedy

Safety is often sacrificed at the altar of faith. On April 21, a series of powerful explosions tore through a makeshift fireworks assembly unit at Mundathikode on the outskirts of Kerala’s Thrissur city, causing death and devastation. Unofficial estimates put the death toll at 15; the blasts left over 24 injured, many grievously, and damaged some 50 houses in the vicinity. An unspecified number of workers were handling firecrackers stocked across multiple sheds for a customary sample fireworks display ahead of the annual Thrissur Pooram, culminating in a competitive fireworks display organised by the Thiruvambady and Paramekkavu temple authorities. The State and Centre announced compensation for victims’ families and declared it a State-specific disaster to speed up relief. Multiple inquiries, including a judicial commission led by a former High Court judge, were launched to unearth any safety violations and regulatory lapses. A scaled-down version of the Pooram pageantry will be held on April 26 in view of ‘public sentiments’.

The blasts, following a similar explosion at a Virudhunagar fireworks factory in Tamil Nadu, have once again exposed gaps in enforcing safety and licensing norms in India’s pyrotechnic industry. Evidently, the stringent regulatory measures stipulated by the Judicial Commission after the 2016 Puttingal temple fireworks accident — covering licensing, materials, layout, and conduct of displays — have been progressively sidelined during Kerala’s summer festival season. Eyewitness accounts at Mundathikode suggest woefully inadequate compliance with safety norms. Explosive experts have hinted at the absence of a safe distance between sheds storing gunpowder and abrasion-sensitive chemicals, the stockpiling of excess quantities of flash powder, the lack of safety gear and firefighting equipment, the employment of untrained workers, the likely use of banned chemicals, and lax enforcement — all together forming the perfect recipe for disaster. Religious festivals such as the Thrissur Pooram have lately been entangled in vote-bank politics, dissuading the authorities from enforcing safety measures around hazardous activities such as fireworks displays and elephant parades. ‘Loudness’ often defines the success of competitive fireworks displays, and attempts to do away with high-decibel fireworks citing the safety of patients, pregnant women, and infants find no popular support. The Mundathikode tragedy is a sobering reminder of the human cost of high-risk festivities, and should hasten the adoption of safer modern alternatives to conventional pyrotechnics, such as cold spark technology.