22 Killed In Hpcl Refinery Blast

At least 22 people were killed and 15 others injured yesterday at the 4.5 million tpa Hindustan Petroleum refinery in Visakhapatnam in what was described by a petroleum ministry official as the worst-ever refinery fire in India. The fire started after an LPG pipeline leak caused an explosion in the storage area of the refinery.

The blaze was still raging 12 hours after the explosion at around 6.30 am. About 70,000 people in the vicinity of the plant are said to have fled their homes in search of safer places. The local administration has opened 10 relief camps in Visakhapatnam to accommodate the citizens till it is safe for them to return home.

 

A spokesperson for HPCL in Mumbai said the cause of the accident had yet to be ascertained. At this point of time we cannot rule out sabotage, he added. HPCL sources added that an enquiry would be conducted to determine the cause of the fire.

An HPCL press release issued in New Delhi late last night said all the refinery units were safe and had been shut down as a precautionary measure. The residual hydrocarbon in the tanks on fire is being allowed to burn out safely under controlled conditions.

P V Satyanarayanamurthi, a senior Andhra government official, said several other buildings in the vicinity of the refinery had been damaged by the blast, including one owned by Indian Oil Corp

The chief of the Indian Navys Eastern Command, Vice Admiral P S Das, said:There has been some damage to our headquarters. We have to assess the extent of the damage.

R K Madan, HPCLs general manager for coordination in New Delhi, told Reuters that the refining unit was safe. The fire has been isolated in the storage area, he said. Visakhapatnam police commissioner R P Meena confirmed this.

A senior petroleum ministry official who asked not to be identified said 10 of 16 storage tanks had burnt down, two were still burning and four were not on fire. He said there was 4,000 tonnes of LPG and 8,000 tonnes of petrol and naphtha in the storage tanks.

Fire-fighting teams from the Indian Navy and two firms located close by Andhra Pradesh Petrochemicals and Coromandel Fertilisers had been deployed and are continuously hosing down the storage tanks, Madan said.

A special fire-fighting unit from Mumbai was on its way, local officials said. The extent of the damage or the production loss due to the fire has yet to be estimated, Madan said. HPCL chief regional manager Sudip Ghosh said over 55 tonnes of foam was being airlifted to Visakhapatnam from Baroda along with a team of fire-fighting experts.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will fly to the accident site today. Two senior state government ministers were rushed in to monitor relief operations soon after news of the disaster reached the state government headquarters in Hyderabad

Naidu was in Delhi later yesterday, where he held discussions with Prime Minister I K Gujral and Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas T R Baalu. Baalu is said to have assured Naidu of full support in dealing with the crisis. Naidu also apprised petroleum secretary Vijay Kerkar of the situation.

HPCL chairman H L Zutshi rushed to the site from Mumbai soon after the news broke. He was accompanied by marketing director S K Kapoor, production director D S Mathur and other technical personnel.

The mishap is understood to have occurred when the night shift workers had just left the refinery, while the morning shift employees were yet to take charge. Since yesterday was Sunday, not many workers were present in the refinery at the time of the explosion.

HPCL sources said the refinery was re-commissioned only on Saturday morning after a maintenance shut-down. As a result, most of the spheres (storage tanks) and tankers were half-empty.

The refinery was taken over from Caltex Ltd by the government when petroleum refineries were nationalised in the 1970s. The refinery is undergoing a Rs 953-crore expansion, aimed at increasing its processing capacity from the existing 4.5 million tonnes of crude to 7.5 million tonnes.