Crowds Besiege India’s LPG Dealers as War Crimps Supply

Delivery staff unload liquefied petroleum gas cylinders from a truck at a distribution centre in Varanasi, India on March 11.

Photographer: Niharika Kulkarni/AFP/Getty Images

Gas dealer Vishal Vilas Mandhare stares at the snaking queue outside his shop in Pune, which served just 20 people a day before the Iran war. Carrying empty cylinders, clients pepper him and his staff with questions about the looming shortages of India’s cooking fuel of choice.

“The dealers are facing as much trouble as the customers,” he says wearily, “just a different kind.”