Massive fire at Puttingal temple in India's Kerala state kills over 100 people, leaves hundreds injured

MUMBAI, India —
A series of explosions early Sunday
caused by a fireworks display during a religious festival at a temple left 106 people dead and hundreds more injured in the southern Indian state of Kerala, the local authorities said.
P. T. Chacko, a spokesman for Chief Minister Oommen Chandy of Kerala, said that the fireworks display had been specifically forbidden by officials in the coastal district of Kollam but that the Puttingal temple had gone ahead anyway.
One of the devices landed in the building where the fireworks were being stored, setting off explosions that leveled several buildings, killing and injuring people, K.Hari Kumar, a fire officer at the scene, said in a telephone interview.
“Fragments of the building with huge pieces of burnt crackers were flying all over,” said Rajendran, 36, a mason who goes by one name.
He had traveled with friends from his village 20 miles away to attend the festivities, which marked the start of the new year on the Hindu calendar.
“We all started scrambling for a safe place,” Mr. Rajendran said by telephone from his bed in an intensive care unit at the nearby Holy Cross Super Specialty Hospital, where he was taken with broken bones in his face and in one arm. His friends were so badly burned, he said, that he did not know if they would survive.

Over the six weeks leading up to the Kollam fire disaster, officials at every level recommended denial of permission to the Puttingal temple for the fireworks show, and a day
before it, banned the display.

The powerful temple administration simply ignored the order, helped along by local politicians with an eye on elections.

Top sources in the Kerala Secretariat and the Kollam District Collectorate said that both Additional District
Magistrate A Shanavas and District Collector A Shainamol, who were instrumental in denying permission
for the fireworks, were also bullied and threatened by local politicians and Hindu groups, with communal
motives attributed to their actions.

The temple is a replica of the Adikesava Perumal temple located in Kanyakumari District.

It is the richest Hindu temple in the world. In terms of assets gold and precious stones, it is by far the wealthiest institution and place of worship of any kind, in the recorded
history of the world.

Clue from NY times.