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Caught in a time warp: Ritual fireworks in India need safer, healthier technologies

Even 8 years after India’s worst firecracker disaster claimed 110 lives, traditional practices and flagrant violations of the law shield such spectacles from modern options– but change is coming

Collapsed wall after the firecracker accident at the Puttingal temple in Kollam, Kerala in 2016 which claimed 110 lives.Photo credit: Arun VR Paravur / Wikipedia

Within days of each other, earlier this month, fatal accidents engulfed places in two south Indian states, where fire crackers were being manufactured or stored.

One person was killed  and 25 injured in a blast  in Choorakadu on February 12  in the temple town of Tripunithura in Kerala, where fireworks were being (illegally) stored in preparation for the annual festival at the nearby Puthiyakavu temple. Five days later, 10 died in an explosion in a firecracker manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district.

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