1 dead in Visakhapatnam pharma unit fire

Visakha district collector V Vinay Chand said the fire broke out in one of the columns during the solvents’ recovery process.

A 40-year old chemist was charred to death and four workers were injured, one of them seriously, when fire broke out at a pharmaceutical plant in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam, leading to a massive explosion of one of its reactors late on Monday night, police said. While initially Visakhapatnam police commissioner R K Meena said that there were no casualties, except injuries to four workers, the police later recovered the charred body of senior chemist Kandregula Srinivasa Rao.

Flames and Smoke billows come out as fire broke out at Ramky CETP Solvents Pvt. Ltd Company in Visakhapatnam on Monday.(ANI Photo)

Visakhapatnam district collector V Vinay Chand said the fire broke out in one of the columns during the solvents’ recovery process. There were five reactors in the plant and one of them exploded. The fire spread to a few other adjacent tanks storing chemicals resulting in their explosion. The sound was so deafening that people in Visakhapatnam city, about 15 km from the pharma city, could also hear it. The police commissioner said the cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained. “The police and fire tenders rushed there and brought the flames under control,” he said.

The opposition Telugu Desam Party and CPI (M) blamed it on the state government for adopting callous approach towards industrial accidents.