Workers in Sivakasi, a town in southern India, are producing millions of firecrackers for Diwali and New Year celebrations, often at considerable risk to their own lives. The town accounts for about 90 per cent of the country's firecrackers, and dozens of people die each year in accidental explosions at factories across the region. Recent explosions have been reported at multiple Sivakasi factories, a reminder that the danger is not confined to a single workshop or a single season.
The work is done largely by hand. Crackers are filled with gunpowder by workers who handle explosive material throughout the production process, and the risk of an explosion runs through several of the steps rather than being confined to one stage. Chemical mixing carries its own specific hazards, and workers inhale toxic substances while they work. Many wear little in the way of safety equipment, leaving them exposed both to sudden blasts and to the slower effects of prolonged chemical exposure.
A recent video follows a worker, Balumani, on his commute to the factory, offering a view of daily life in an industry that sustains much of Sivakasi's local economy. The footage also traces the history of the local firecracker trade, which has grown into a major source of employment in the area. Once the crackers are finished, they are sealed and packaged for sale, and it is the approach of Diwali that drives the peak in demand. Workshops make millions of crackers in the weeks before the festival and before New Year's celebrations, so production is concentrated into a short window.
The celebrations bring their own consequences. Air pollution tends to rise after Diwali, and the report discusses so-called green cracker alternatives as a lower-pollution option that could reduce the environmental cost of the festival. Those alternatives are presented as a possibility rather than as a settled replacement for conventional crackers. The video does not, however, give an exact annual death toll from the factory explosions, nor does it specify how many workers are affected by them.
Several questions remain open. The extent to which safety rules are enforced at the workshops is unclear, and the report does not establish how much production takes place without a licence. The scale of the risk across the industry as a whole has therefore not been fully quantified, and the workers who make the crackers are left to carry the danger of a trade that is tied closely to a national festival and to the livelihoods of the town.