Close on the heels of the accident at Sainor Life Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City (JNPC), Parawada, in Visakhapatnam, another accident rocked the pharma city, developed by Ramky group, late on Monday night.
A major fire broke out at Visakha Solvents and engulfed a major part of the facility. One person was charred to death and another sustained burn injuries in the incident.
The deceased has been identified as K. Srinivasa Rao, senior chemist, a resident of Anakapalle, and the injured is Malleswara Rao, junior chemist. Malleswara Rao suffered about 30% burns and is being treated at a corporate hospital in the city. The incident occurred between 10.45 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Monday.
According to CEO of JNPC P.P. Lal Krishna, the incident occurred when a solvent chemical DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide) was in the distillation process.
“One of the chemist was trying to remove some sample from the reactor, and at that moment static electricity was generated resulting in a fire. The chemist instead of dousing the fire with a fire extinguisher, allegedly ran from the spot and the fire spread within minutes to engulf the facility. It spread to the storage facility resulting in a huge inferno,” said Dr. Krishna.
Luckily, as per the CEO, there were only four persons inside plant at the time of the incident.
Visakha Solvents is a common solvent recovery facility for JNPC, and all difficult solvents from various units are sent to the factory for treatment. As per the business model, the solvent after treatment is disposed of or sold.
People panic
After the fire spread from the reactor room to the storage facility, solvents stored in drums started to explode one after another and it created a panic-like situation in the pharma city and the neighbouring villages. Fresh with memory of LG Polymers incident, people panicked and were seen fleeing the area.
Fire tenders reach spot
Police teams and fire tenders reached the spot within 30 minutes and braving heavy rain, fought the fire for almost six hours. The flames were doused by about 5 a.m. and only then they could ascertain that one person had died. “We had to use both water and foam to douse the fire,” said Commissioner of Police Rajeev Kumar Meena.
With this accident at Visakha Solvents, in the last three months, the city has seen three major industrial accidents, including two in JNPC.
