krishnagiri nine people three of them women were killed and 12 others were injured in an explosion at a licensed firecracker shop and godown in krishnagiri town on saturday morningthe shop owner ravi his family and employees were packing firecrackers at the shop around 945am when the crackers started exploding the conflagration spread and the entire shop and godown collapsed the fire spread to nearby commercial establishments toofire and rescue services took nearly four hours to put out the blaze only after this could they pull the victims out from under the debris and take them to hospitalamong the dead were the shop owner ravi 46 his daughter r rithika 19 his son r rithish 21 s imran 18 s ibrahim kaleelulla 21 b rajeswari 55 k sivaraj 25 and m sarasu 35 the body of a male was yet to be identifiedprime minister narendra modi announced 2 lakh ex gratia to the kin of the deceased and 50000 for each of the injured chief minister m k stalin announced 3 lakh to the families of the deceased krishnagiri collector k m sarayu said the shop had a licence till 2024 ravi used the godown as the stock point and the shop for selling crackers he did not manufacture the crackers sarayu said the authorities were probing reports by locals that they heard a gas cylinder exploding just before the blaze theres a hotel two shops away from the cracker godown the krishnagiri town police were probing this angle too in their investigation into the explosion superintendent of police saroj kumar thakur told reporters all the building structures collapsed in the explosion impact said k venkatachalam krishnagiri town fire service station officer he added that the fire and the debris fell on pedestrians and motorists who were crossing the place at that time a victims hand was found 300 metres from the spot said k mohammed one of the residents j subaiyan 14 was injured when he was standing outside his house his father jaffar said a fireball suddenly fell on him followed by a huge explosion subaiyans condition is said to be stable minister for food and civil supplies r sakkarapani visited the krishnagiri government hospital and met the victims and their families a case was registered and further inquiry is on pm in a message said my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims during this extremely difficult timegovernor r n ravi said he was deeply saddened by the loss of valuable lives in the mishap besides 3 lakh for the families of the deceased the chief minister announced 1 lakh to the critically injured and 50000 to those with minor injuries stalin said he had asked sakkarapani to monitor the rescue operations aiadmk general secretary edappadi k palaniswami urged the state government to monitor the cracker manufacturing units and the shops to ensure they followed safety measures tnn