Radheyshyam Sharma, who is being treated at Suvarna Charitable Trust Hospital at Borivli, told Express Newsline: ``The Sunandan Gas Agency officials had checked both the cylinders in my house and had found the pipe intact. They said there was no leakage.'' One of the cylinders was empty and the other had been connected for just two weeks. Both the cylinders survived the explosion. ``I had replaced the cylinder pipe last week itself,'' stated Sharma.

Police officials, though, felt that the blast was due to a gas leak, but refused to confirm it as the police report on the tragedy is still awaited.The Sharmas' neighbour, Gayatri Rao, who has also been injured in the blast, added that the Sharmas' kitchen wallhad not been damaged; rather, the partition wall between her living room and her neighbour's and the ceiling of a bedroom in Sharma's house had caved in. ``If it was only a cylinder blast, how could both the plinth and main pillars have been damaged so extensively?'' she said, hinting that the blast could have been caused by some explosive.

The seven-member Sharma family slept in the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen. Radheyshyam's youngest daughter Chandni (9), who was sleeping near the wall adjacent to the kitchen, died instantly in the blast. Her 16-year-old sister Dipika told Express Newsline that the family had finished dinner at 10 pm and had slept in the same room after planning for a summer vacation. According to Dipika, a bigger disaster had been averted as she and her sister usually slept in the bedroom, where the entire ceiling caved in due to the blast's impact. The family had shifted to the flat, constructed by MHADA in 1985, six years ago. They only managed to lay their hands on some cashamounting to Rs 16,000 and jewellery.Recalled their neighbour Gayatri Rao, the blast was so strong that several windows of the building were shattered. ``The main door of my house and that of the Sharmas flew off with such force that it landed in the opposite house,'' she recalled. Rao and her sister Prema Thakur were totally buried under the debris as a wall collapsed on them. Prema, in fact, was buried so deep that her family members walked all over her before they found her. she has been admitted to hospital with a fractured arm.

Bhimrao Katak Dhond, a first floor resident, was not so fortunate. He had just returned from Solapur after dropping his family there, and died as his house's floor caved in.

The whole of the ground floor of the H 10 type building is still covered with debris. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has asked the 20 families residing in the ground plus four building to move out until the structural engineers complete their examination and till the BMC issues an occupationcertificate.