Officials of various departments of Centre and State Government are being interrogated by the Central enquiry committee formed by the Union Minister of Industries and Commerce, Anand Sharma, to probe the Mudalipatti cracker unit fire accident in which 39 persons were killed in Virudhunagar district on September 5.
The Joint Secretary in the Ministry, Chaitanya Prasad, on Thursday enquired about the cause and circumstances that led to the fire accident at the Om Sakthi Fireworks Industries with the officials from the Revenue, Police and Fire and Rescue Services departments.
On the first day of enquiry held on Tuesday, officials from the Petroleum and Explosives Organisation and New India Assurance Company were enquired about the accident. Six officials from the PESO, including the Deputy Chief Controller of Explosives, B. Rengasamy, were enquired on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the Aruppukottai Revenue Divisional Officer, Gunasekaran, Tahsildar (Virudhunagar), R. Mary Clara, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Virudhunagar), Ramamoorthy, Inspector of Police, P. Raja, and Medical Officers, who conducted post-mortem deposed before the central committee.
The Joint Director, Fire and Rescue Services, Shahul Hameed, and other officers too appeared on Thursday.
The officials enquired about the accident and the relief works taken up at the accident site. They also solicited suggestions on prevention of such accidents in future, one of the officials said.
Representatives from the cracker and amorces manufacturers’ associations also deposed.
The State Government too has been conducting a parallel probe into the accident. Most of the dead were curious on-lookers and those trying to rescue the workers trapped inside the cracker unit were caught unawares by a huge second explosion that occurred at least 40 minutes after the first blast.
