NE NEWS SERVICE
VISAKHAPATNAM, JULY 14
An employee was killed and another seriously injured in a major fire accident in a pharmaceutical company in the Pharma City at Parawada near here. Three others workers, who were also at the unit when the mishap occurred, escaped to safety with little injuries, police sources said on Tuesday. The state government has ordered an inquiry into the incident. The seriously injured worker was admitted to a private hospital in the city for treatment.
He was said to have sustained 30 per cent burns in the fire, which broke out late on Monday night. Senior chemist Srinivasa Rao’s body was found in a charred condition inside the unit where the incident occurred. According to the local Deputy Commissioner of Police Suresh Babu, there was a flame in a reactor that caused the fire.
“Exact cause of the accident was yet to be established,” he said. After an overnight operation that lasted over four hours, State Disaster Response and Fire Services personnel finally doused the flames on Tuesday morning. The mishap occurred in Coastal Waste Management Project, a unit of Ramky Solvents.
A reaction while treating the ethanol solvent might have triggered the fire, police sources said. Last month, a gas leak incident in one of the companies in Pharma City left two workers dead and four injured.
