At least 18 workers were charred to death and 24 others were injured, most of them critically, in a powerful blast that tore through an explosives manufacturing factory in Maharashtra’s Nagpur district on Sunday morning, the police said.The incident comes a day after a blast at a cracker unit in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada district claimed 21 lives.The blast took place at the SBL Energy Limited factory, a mining and industrial explosives manufacturer, at Raulgaon in Katol tehsil of Nagpur district, a senior police official said.The bodies were charred beyond recognition and samples of the family members were being taken for DNA testing to ascertain the identities of the deceased.Inconsolable family members of the victims thronged the factory compound, located about 50 km from the district headquarters, for some news about their loved ones.PM announces Rs 2L ex gratia for victims’ kinNew Delhi: Expressing condolences over the loss of lives in the Nagpur blast, PM Narendra Modi on Sunday announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for the injured from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund. TNSChief Minister Devendra Fadnavis ordered a thorough investigation into the cause of the explosion.Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), along with officials from Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) and Defence Information System for Security (DISS), were at the site and rescue operations were being carried out on a war footing, Fadnavis said.The injured were shifted to a hospital in Nagpur immediately after the blast, the police said.District Collector Vipin Itankar and Superintendent of Police Harrsh Podar were at the spot.Representatives of SBL Energy Limited said the incident occurred at the company’s detonator packing unit between 7 am and 7.15 am.“The incident occurred in the packing area of the facility, where no active manufacturing operations were underway at the time. The exact cause remains under investigation, and we are cooperating fully with the authorities concerned,” the company said in a statement.The company said its immediate priority was to ensure all necessary assistance to the affected employees and their families.