The two workers who suffered serious burns in a blast at Steel Melt Shop-2 of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant on Wednesday will be shifted to National Burns Centre in Mumbai by an air ambulance on Friday for better medical care.
The VSP management on Thursday decided to shift them with the consent of their relatives. Senior foreman M. Raja Rao, 52, and contract worker Sumon Roy, 34, were admitted to a corporate hospital here after they were injured in the blast that occurred reportedly due to water leakage from a pipeline at the LD converter during blowing of oxygen through the hot metal bath.
Meanwhile, VSP unions stepped up their campaign for a high-level probe into the incident.
Visakha Steel Employees’ Congress general secretary Mantri Rajasekhar, deputy general secretary Neerukonda Ramachandra Rao, YSR Trade Union Congress general secretary Y. Masthanappa, and Steel Plant Employees’ Union president J. Ayodhyaram criticised the management for negligence.
They said that despite complaint on leakage of water drops for more than a week, the higher officials did not take any steps to rectify it. They blamed the management for recurring accidents in the plant.
Nineteen employees had died when oxygen pressure reduction station in SMS-2 exploded on this day four years ago.
