Fire breaks out in BHEL's Bhopal plant

However, no casualties were reported

Industrial safety in Navaratna Comany of India BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) once again came under a cloud of doubt after an inferno took grip of block number 3 this morning. BHEL has its mother plant in Bhopal and fire incidences are often reported here. However no casualty has been reported so far though workers inside the premise, who did not wish to be identified, informed BS that a worker received injuries and admitted to nearby Kasturba Hospital.

The fire, according to employees inside the BHEL premise at the time of incident, took place when a transformer was on test, blasted. A BHEL official said: “The incident happened during testing of a transformer, there is no loss of human life or even any causality. There must be hardly ten workers during testing. Probably a short circuit triggered fire, exact reasons will be ascertained after investigation."

"But the fire is under control,” Sanjay Kak, BHEL spokesperson told Business Stabdard. In contrast the Industrial Security Force unit could not manage to control the fire and sent for Local Municipal fire brigade.

The fire was huge and clouds of black smoke were seen from nearly 5 km radius.

B S Yadav, an employee, who was in the nearby block when the fire broke out said: “I heard a blast and then flames, I and my fellow workers were asked to leave the block immediately. There must be 800 employees in block number 3 when this took place at around 9.45 am.”

Another employee who was in the testing block (number 3) where the fire incidence happened said: “A tube connects a huge oil tank with the transformers which are placed for testing near it. There was a blast in the coil due to short circuit and triggered a fire in transformer and then the oil tank. Local fire brigade and ambulances reached and were trying to control the fire.”