Aizawl: The death toll in the incident of an oil tanker fire on October 29 evening rose to eight as a 25-year-old man from Thingsul Tlangnuam village, about 60 kilometres east of Aizawl, died on Sunday evening, police said on Monday.
The victim succumbed to his burn injury at Zoram Medical College (ZMC) at Falkawn, about 16 km from Aizawl, the police said.
Four persons were burned to death on the spot and 17 others were injured when an oil tanker carrying petrol caught fire at Tuirial Airfield village near Aizawl on October 29.
The incident occurred when the oil tanker was heading towards Champhai in the northeastern part of the state bordering Myanmar.
The oil tanker met with an accident and turned turtle on National Highway-6 at around 3 pm and fire broke out when locals and motorists passing by collected petrol leaking from the vehicle around 6 pm.
Of the 17 injured people, a 37-year-old man who sustained a 100 per cent burn and a 41-year-old man inflicted with 80-90 per cent burn succumbed to their injuries on November 3.
Another victim aged 23 died the next day.
The death toll might go up as there are still some more people with severe burn injuries, police said.
Police suspect that someone might have lit a cigarette when people were stealing petrol from the oil tanker.
A taxi and three scooters were also completely gutted in the fire, they said.
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