HPCL fire toll rises to 8

By SNV Sudhir



Visakhapatnam, Aug 24, 2013: The death toll in the HPCL-Visakh Refinery fire rose to eight on Saturday. Sources also said that five to six workers were still missing and it was being suspected that they might have been buried under the debris of the 50-ft wooden cooling tower, which had collapsed on Friday evening following the explosion.

While HPCL employee Chada Murali died on the spot, contract workers A. Apparao, A.
Srinivasa Rao and Manojeet Pradhan, who were private employees working on the renovation and expansion of the cooling tower, succumbed to their injuries in the hospitals where they were undergoing treatment.

The bodies of two other workers were found at the accident site on Saturday morning and their identities are yet to be established. Even as the Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas, Ms Panabaka Lakshmi, said that an inquiry was ordered into the blast at state-owned HPCL refinery in Malkapuram on Friday evening and that action would be taken against those responsible for the mishap, fingers are being pointed at the quality of wooden cooling tower that started operations in 2009.

Preliminary inquiry revealed that the excess inflow of hydrocarbons in one of the multiple tubes leaked into the seawater coolant, while welding work for expansion and modernisation of the cooling tower was underway which led to the explosion.

The expansion and modernisation was taken up as HPCL was about to start production of fuels as per Euro IV standards. HPCL has two cooling towers. While one tower came into operation in the 90s, the second one started working in 2009. The latter collapsed on Friday.

The same tower partially collapsed a few months back. “A part of the cooling tower was

dislodged a few months back and the present works are also part of the modernisation of certain parts,” said HPCL-Visakh refinery, executive director, V.V.R. Narasimham.

When asked why HPCL was depending on private contractors and outsourcing, Mr Narasimham said that HPCL can’t take up civil works and they would have to entrust the job to private contractors.

However, he added that there are regular quality assessments done by their employees. The works on the cooling tower are being executed by five different private firms.

Fortunately, the blast took place 1 km away from the pipeline and oil storage tanks; otherwise the blast impact would have been more.