A fire broke out at the crude distillery unit number 3 of the HPCL Visakh Refinery at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday. According to Commissioner of Police Manish Kumar Sinha, no casualties or injuries were reported as all were evacuated in time. The fire was doused within an hour, he said.
As per the initial assessment by the disaster management department of the 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, which contained naphtha.
Four fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the flames were doused within an hour.
A release from the HPCL said safety measures and firefighting were activated immediately and the fire was extinguished. Cooling operations were in progress and the exact cause of the fire and assessment of material damage would be taken up once the unit cooled down. The release also stated that there were no casualties.