The police reported that an early-Saturday fire in Tamil Nadu claimed the lives of at least nine persons after it started in a train cabin that was stopped. The passengers' use of a gas cylinder to prepare tea inside the train, according to the officials, started the fire.

At 5.15 am, the Punalur-Madurai Express yard received a complaint of a fire in the private party coach. The firefighters responded immediately and put out the flames by 7.15 am, according to the report.

The dead passengers, all of whom were travelling on religious business, were all from Uttar Pradesh, according to Tamil Nadu Minister for Commercial Taxes P Moorthy, who represents Madurai East.

Nine persons have died as a result of the fire tragedy. There are three female travellers and six male passengers in all. They are all older than 50 years old. According to our first investigation, that tourist party coach held roughly 63 people. Early this morning, the passengers made tea using a gas cylinder. They used a lock they had packed to secure their coach since they believed the train had halted in the middle of nowhere. The remainder of the passengers were unable to exit the bus after the cylinder exploded since it was locked and they were unsure of who the key belonged to at the time. The collector said that they jumped off the carriage after breaking through the door.

The Southern Railways reported that the train arrived in Madurai at 3.47 am on Saturday. The party carriage was delayed at the Madurai stabling queue after being separated.

According to a statement from the Madurai Railway Divisional Manager, no other coaches outside the tourist group bus were harmed in the fire disaster, and train services running from/to Madurai junction have not been impacted.

They are expected to go back to Chennai tomorrow on the Kollam-Chennai Egmore Ananthapuri Express and then travel back to Lucknow, according to the press statement.