Dabwali fire accident
1995 fire accident in Haryana, India
The Dabwali fire accident occurred on 23 December 1995 at Mandi Dabwali, a town in Sirsa district, Haryana in India.
Incident
The incident occurred at the Rajiv Marriage Palace in Dabwali, where the local DAV Public School was holding its annual prize distribution function. A synthetic tent, which had been set up inside the building, caught fire when an electric generator short-circuited. The fire spread quickly and blocked the main entrance; many of the deaths were caused by the resultant stampede as 1,500 people tried to escape through the single exit door. At least 400 people died in the fire, and another 160 were injured, half of them with serious burns. Some sources estimate that up to 540 people were killed, 170 of them being children.
Aftermath
Dabwali Civil Hospital was unable to cope with the number of casualties, so many of the burn victims were sent to nearby towns for treatment. The Christian Medical College in Ludhiana received thirty-two patients, despite having only a six-bed burn unit and inadequate resources. An angry crowd of 5,000 mourners gathered on the streets of Dabwali, deriding the emergency facilities and blocking the police from taking bodies away for cremation.
In January 2003, a one-man commission was set up to investigate the incident, and to calculate the amount of compensation owed to the families of the victims.
“Dabwali fire accident” enters the record as 1995 fire accident in Haryana, India. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Dabwali, fire and accident can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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