KABUL, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Over a dozen employees were injured as a gas cylinder blasted due to gas leakage inside a hotel in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan on Wednesday, said a provincial police statement on Thursday.
The incident occurred inside the hotel in Batikot district on Wednesday evening, injuring 14 employees of the hotel, with some in critical condition, the statement added.
Blaming the carelessness of the hotel employees for the incident, the statement noted that police personnel had taken the injured persons to the nearby health center.
Afghans mostly use wooden stoves and gas cylinders to keep their residences warm in chilly winter, but the traditional old-fashioned heating system often ends in catastrophe as gas leakage or carbon monoxide poisoning sometimes kills or hurts its users. ■
