Explosion-like sound sparks panic; cause not yet clear

A loud blast-like sound rocked the city on Monday afternoon, sending panic waves in the city. Interestingly, the cause of the sound was not clear till the filing of this report. While the administration claimed that it sounded like a cloud burst, met experts said there were no indications of anything like this. Yet the city was abuzz with rumours like that of a bomb blast and a cloud burst a similar to those that had created havoc in states like that of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. There were also rumors of an army drill going on near Phillaur however a blast this loud could not have happened even if a bomb had gone off.

Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner Rahul Tewari, when contacted, informed, "The moment we all heard this sound I called up the control room and we did not find any kind of activity in the city that could have led to this kind of noise. So we are not clear what happened exactly."

Asked about the Army exercise, Phillaur DSP Paramjit Singh Pannu remarked, "I too had heard the sound and while we could not find any thing I did send one of my SHOs to the spot where an army unit was camping. However there is no unit at present and no exercise going on so even we do not know what actually happened. It could be some kind of natural activity as a result of monsoon."

Ishwar Chander, director of PPA, Phillaur, too ruled out any kind of accident with the police training institute. Dr K K Gill, agrometrologist with Punjab Agricultural University said, "This could not be a cloud burst for then there would have been very heavy rainfall or at least cloudiness. Nothing of the sorts happened though we did get some rainfall today and when the sound was heard the sun was out bright. We are however trying to track down thundering but then again the radars do not show any such activity and more over thunders usually have an echo something which was missing in this sound. So even we are not clear about the issue."

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