Saurabh Vaktania | Posted by Bijin Jose
Mumbai, October 8, 2017 | UPDATED 17:57 IST
Investigations have found out that the fire took place due to a lightning strike at the oil terminal on Friday evening.
It seems the fire that ravaged the oil terminal at Mumbai's Butcher Island will take more time to extinguish.
The fire is posing an extremely difficult situation for the firefighters here. Investigations have found out that the fire took place due to a lightning strike at the oil terminal on Friday evening.
The Butcher Island also known as Jawahar Dweep is the oil terminal of Mumbai Port Trust. Mumbai fire chief Rahangdale said, "situation remains the same. Conditions are not good. But fire is confined to one tank. Our main challenge is to keep other tanks safe, therefore, cooling operations are underway."
The island is off east coast from Mumbai about 9 km inside and is restricted for public. A separate island is kept to keep the oil in order to keep the city safe from such incidents.
According to officials, the island has a capacity to store nearly 1.80 lakh metric tons of oil. The two tanks in which fire took place has capacity of about 32,000 metric tons. Officials said that frequent blasts were seen at the spot of the fire.
A fire official said, "the fire is extremely bad and it is not possible to extinguish the fire. The excessive heat is not letting the foam to settle on the fire.
Therefore, now we are waiting for the entire crude oil to get over. Once the oil is over, the fire will extinguish."
The officials said that there is a submerged pipeline underground which goes from Butcher Island to Mahul refinery in Mumbai. The pipeline is shut affecting the services.
Another official said that the temperature near the tank is about 350 degree and therefore firemen are unable to go near the tank and its surrounding area.
Scientist from BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) have been called to the island to help officials extinguish the fire. The Mumbai Fire Brigade, Mumbai Port Trust fire teams, Coast Guard are jointly working on the situation.
Fire officials believe that situation could have been worse had there been no timely action. The traffic movement near the Butcher Island has been stopped and the vessels are put to a halt.
