20190903 Fire at ONGC’s Uran plant kills GM, 3 CISF constables
India Sep 03 2019 “Factories”
Dead : dead 1 to 4 Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 1 to 9
Fire at ONGC’s Uran plant kills GM, 3 CISF constables
Updated: 2019–09–04
Fire at ONGC’s Uran plant kills GM, 3 CISF constables ONGC oil and gas processing plant at Nagaon village in Uran , around 30km from here, killing four persons, including the plant’s general manager, and injuring two others on Tuesday morning. Fire-fighters controlled it in four hours before it could turn into a bigger disaster.
C N Rao, GM and resident production supervisor, got trapped in the blaze as he rushed into the plant to check the situation. Three CISF fire-fighters—head constable E Nayaka and constables M K Paswan and S P Kushwaha—were killed when their tender caught fire. Their colleagues, constables Mahesh K R and Raj Shinde, sustained severe burns and are admitted in hospital.
The processing plant that sits only metres away from houses was spared a greater chemical inferno as fire-fighters from nearby areas like Dronagiri, Panvel and Nerul joined the ONGC and CISF teams to control the blaze in four hours. As a precaution, nearly 2,500 Nagaon-Pirwadi villagers were evacuated. Uran police threw a 2km cordon around the plant.
ONGC PRO Sonalee Dutta said the exact cause of the fire is still being ascertained. Sources said plant effluents containing highly flammable naphtha and other liquid chemicals had collected in the underground storage tank. Due to the heavy rain, it overflowed, taking the chemicals into the storm water drainage flowing through the village. The volatile vapours might have come in contact with a fire source, probably cooking, and spread to the plant.
Cidco’s chief fire officer Vijay Rane, too, said the cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. He explained that the CISF constables got engulfed in flames while pushing a fire tender. He was not certain if they had turned the ignition key—which is prohibited as it can lead to a fire as there is chemical vapour cloud formation in the premises.
Though a major disaster was averted, questions are being raised about the plant’s preparedness. “The question that arises is whether the ONGC plant has a detection system to arrest leakage of flammable chemicals and whether they have automatic fire sprinkler system at the processing plant. They may definitely have such systems, but why it did not activate needs to be verified,” said chemicals expert Ulhas Thakur.
“ONGC’s robust crisis mitigation preparedness helped put off the major fire in a very short time. ONGC fire services and crisis management team were immediately pressed into action. There was no impact on oil processing as the gas was diverted to Hazira plant,” said Dutta.
The fire spread major panic in the village. “The ONGC plant’s compound wall is 10m from my chawl. Early in the morning, the naphtha with crude oil leaked into the drainage channel and soon caught fire, which reached the plant, where the blast occurred,” said Manoj Gharat, 38, who owns a printing business at Nagaon-Pirwadi.
“The people residing nearby ran for lives. Nagaon has a population of around 4,500 people; around 2,500 had to be evacuated as they stay close to the plant,” said Mamta Gaikwad, a Nagaon grampanchayat member.
“Fortunately, the fire did not engulf the crude oil tanks on our side or else the blast could have caused a major disaster across 10-12 km area,” added Gharat. He recalled that several years ago, a resident who was smoking and defecating into the nullah was charred after a fire break out in the nullah due to naphtha leakage.
Web Source: The Nation