NTPC’s Unchahar plant in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli has risen the death toll to 32, ANI reported on Friday, even as initial reports from the accident site indicated that safety norms were violated.

The reports point to a practice that is regularly resorted to across coal-fired plants in the country. The practice involves de-choking the bottom hopper , the funnel-shaped bottom end of the boiler, by using rods to push out ash clinkers while the boiler is in operation, in violation of safety norms. This very exercise seems to have gone horribly wrong at Unchahar.

Soon after the incident, Union Power Minister R K Singh on Thursday said next of kin of those killed will get a compensation of Rs 20 lakh. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on Wednesday announced Rs 2 lakh compensation for the families of those killed and Rs 50,000 for the seriously injured in one of the country’s worst industrial accidents in years.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who was on a three-day Navsarjan Yatra in poll-bound Gujarat, took a break to visit Rae Bareli to meet the families of victims of the explosion.

Raebareli is the parliamentary constituency of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who has expressed shock at the “terrible tragedy”. At the spot, he was heard asking officers about the incident. Rahul was accompanied by senior party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress state president Raj Babbar.

“People are saying that it (the plant unit) was run early (before schedule). It should not have been run that way. We will demand a probe,” the Congress vice president Gandhi told PTI.

Azad demanded a high-level probe by an outside agency to bring out the facts.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “deeply pained” by the accident, even as he approved an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of those killed in the blast.