Two killed, 3 hurt in GAIL's LPG gas pipeline burst

Incident took place when repair and maintenance work was underway

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Two workers were killed and three others were reportedly injured by the impact of a sudden burst of an LPG pipe line owned by Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) at Durajpally village in Nalgonda district, about 140 km from Hyderabad, around 1pm on Saturday.

The accident occurred on the Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam LPG pipe line. It reminded of a similar accident that occurred due to fire and blast at a GAIL pipeline killing 15 persons in Andhra Pradesh.  

According to a GAIL spokesperson, the incident occurred when the repair and maintenance work was underway. An employee of the company, along with a contract worker, died in this accident. “It was a pure operational incident, not any fire accident,” the spokesperson told Business Standard.

“The fatalities and injuries happened due to mechanical impact during normal pipeline pigging and cleaning operation.  There was no fire or explosion in the incident. The operations were being carried out by TDW India, which is a 100 per cent subsidiary of TDW, USA,” GAIL said in a statement.

Suryapet Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mohammed Abdur Rasheed, under whose jurisdiction the accident occurred, said the bodies of the workers hit a nearby wall when the pipe suddenly burst open under high pressure. “According to our information, two workers — who hail from Bihar — were killed in the accident and three more were injured.”

The company said the best medical facilities are being provided to the injured.

Nalgonda District Fire Officer Harinath Reddy said the accident occurred at 11:45am when some workers were removing the “pig” from the branch pipeline at a gas station in Suryapet.

Heavy pressure blew out from the pipeline, which made the two workers standing at the mouth of the pipeline getting blown away, he said, adding that the two workers dashed into a nearby compound wall.

The gas is supplied from Visakhapatnam to Cherllapalli in Hyderabad and its IP-2 station is located in Suryapet, he said. A “pig” is used to clean the pipeline to detect any problem of the pipelines, Reddy said.

A similar fire and blast in a Gail pipeline in June last year had killed 15 people in Andhra Pradesh.