India steel factory explosion kills 10

At least 10 people were killed and several others seriously injured in an explosion in a steel factory in southeastern India, a local government official said on Thursday.

"Ten people died in the blast on Wednesday evening and about nine are battling for their lives in hospital," Lav Agarwal, district administrator of Visakhapatnam in the state of Andhra Pradesh, told AFP.

A spokesman for the plant who declined to be named said that first reports suggested that the explosion occurred in a control room, but that the cause of the blast was uncertain.

"We found people with 75 percent burns who were rushed to the hospital," he said. "An oxygen supply pipe burst and we are investigating."

The state-owned Rashtriya Ispat Nigam plant, situated in Visakhapatnam, 600 kilometres (370 miles) from state capital Hyderabad, was hit by another fatal accident last month when two workers were killed at the furnace site.

AFP