At noon, however, there was an unreal calm, as if nothing had happened; there was no fire, nor any sign of any. The giveaway was the smoke, and the smell of sulphur; not strong enough to cause any damage, but a potent reminder of what tragedy had taken place.

Things were different, of course, at the scene of the accident. Here the tragedy was revealed in almost visceral clarity: A cylinder ripped apart by the force of the blast, its yellow insides gaping. Around it, the debris that prevented rescue workers from reaching the safety valve.

As the day progressed, the enormity of what had happened was beginning to sink into the staff. Those who had been there since the morning were already numbed with sorrow; those who had just arrived for duty were yet to comprehend what had happened. Notes were exchanged in hushed tones; memories of departed colleagues were recalled.

Outside the factory, a couple of drivers who had come down from Punjab to deliver raw material and water to the factory sat in silence. ``I was inside late last night. I heard the deafening sound of the blast and saw a big cloud of white gas, and I ran outside leaving my vehicle as it was'', one of them said, before another told him to shut up.

Inside the slum, children and women too did not welcome queries about the incident. ``I was sleeping when we heard a blast. It was unusual, a sound I'd never heard before, quite different from the Diwali crackers. As an emergency siren was sounded we assumed that something had happened. We did not go out. We went when we heard the sound of many vehicles coming this way, which I suppose were fire tenders'', said a young shopkeeper inside the slum.

His mother said that she came to learn about the tragedy only in the morning when she saw a large number of people and vehicles coming and going out. ``Nothing will improve... poor people will continue to die'', she whispered.