The explosion also badly burnt the pregnant mother and visiting grandparents of the child, Lamia Chowdhury. Her father, Saquib Ejaz Chowdhury, an A&M international doctoral student, was not home when the fire broke out on Saturday night.

The child's mother, Lufthansa Rahman Kanta, an A&M graduate student, and paternal grandparents Ejaz Rasul Chowdhury and Rabeya Chowdhury were critically burnt in the blast. They were admitted to John Sealy Hospital in Galveston with 70 to 80 percent burns.

Ejaz Chowdhury, retired director of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation, hails from East Bhadeshwar village under Golapganj upazila of Sylhet.

According to a Texas-based media outlet, hearing an explosion at around 9:20pm Saturday neighbours called emergency workers to the married students' housing complex off University Drive.

Firemen found Chowdhury's apartment engulfed in flames. They extinguished the blaze within minutes, rescued Kanta, her daughter and in-laws and took them to St Joseph Regional Health Centre in Bryan. The four were later transferred to John Sealy Hospital's burn unit.

Fire investigators are working to ascertain the cause of the fire. The media reports on Friday and Saturday however speculated that the fire might have been caused by a gas leakage.

A&M spokeswoman Cindy Lawson said the residents of the apartment complex reported of smelling gas and called a housing maintenance worker Friday night. The worker did not find a leak, but shut off the distribution channel connecting Chowdhury's stove to the main gas line replacing it with what is called a flexible line, she said.