A major disaster was averted at HPCL Visakh Refinery, when a fire broke out at the crude distillery unit number 3, in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.
As per the commissioner of police Manish Kumar Sinha, there was no casualty or injury to any person or employees and all in the vicinity were evacuated well in time. The fire was doused off within an hour, he said.
As per the initial assessment by the disaster management department of HPCL, the fire broke out around 3.10 p.m. when an overhead electrical line caught fire, probably due to overheating, and this might have led to the fire in the distillery unit below that contained naphtha.
Four fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the fire was doused off within an hour.
Confirming the fire accident, a release from HPCL stated that safety measures and firefighting was activated immediately and fire has been extinguished. Cooling operations are in progress and the exact cause of the fire and assessment of material damage will be taken up once it cools down.
The release also stated that there were no casualties and there is no risk to the public. The other refinery operations are continuing as normal.