Incident Report

Subject:                   One ThyssenKrupp Worker Killed, Five Critical in Nashik CO2 Fire Extinguisher Tank Explosion

Date of Email report:   Mon 02/04/2012

Report Detail:

A labourer died of asphyxiation, when a carbon dioxide tank exploded in the ThyssenKrupp plant in Wadiwarhe, 22 km near Nashik on Friday morning. Five others are currently critical. The carbon dioxide tank was part of an automatic fire extinguisher apparatus, sources claimed. When the tank exploded, the deceased Kiran Prabhakar Wani (38) took an oxygen cylinder and ran to save the other workers, who were gasping for breath. In the chaos, Kiran slipped and fell down and suffocated. His colleagues, however managed to escape. Top police officials reached the spot and rushed the critically ill workers to the Nashik Civil Hospital. The workers were later admitted to Wockhart and Suyash Hospitals in the city. Wockhart Hospital in a statement, said that two workers had been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). At the time of going to press, they were still “critical and not out of danger”. They will be kept under observation for the next 48 hours, doctors said. Another worker has been admitted in the general ward and was out of danger, but will need close observation, hospital sources said.

Almost all employees of Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel rushed to Wockhardt Hospital on Friday soon after Kiran Wani and other employees who suffered from carbon dioxide poisoning in the fire at the company were admitted there. Considering the rush at the hospital, the city police also reached the spot to ensure that things were kept under control there. A large number of workers alleged that no senior official from the company had come to the hospital to enquire about the deceased and the injured employees. The workers contended that they would not accept the body of Kiran Wani until the management gave them the assurance that Wani's would be properly compensated. With things heating up at the hospital, the hospital management called the city police to take care of the situation. A discussion later took place in the presence of assistant police commissioner Ganesh Shinde and senior police inspector of Bhadrakali police station, Bajirao Bhosale.

While the officials from the management said that Wani's family would be compensated as per the rules, the workers said that the legal compensation offered was the same even for natural death and questioned what the company was offering in case of such accidents. The workers demanded that apart from the legal compensation, the company should also pay more on its part and absorb Wani's wife into the company's fold on compassionate grounds, and on the same salary that her deceased husband was drawing.
By evening, the stand-off between the workers and the management had been resolved after talks between them and senior officials from the company.

Pratibha Chaudhary, who said she was related to deceased Kiran Wani, said, "The incident was unfortunate. I feel that the oxygen mask Kiran Wani put on to save the life of a fellow worker must have failed, due to which he got suffocated." She added that the it was shocking that the top management of the company failed to take note of the gravity of the situation. The workers were admitted to hospital by 10am and till 2pm, none of the senior officials of the company reached the hospital to take stock of the health of their injured employees.

When they finally arrived at 3pm, they said they couldn't meet any further demands other than the compensation and dues as per rules. Chaudhary said, "Our demand was that since Wani was 38 years old, and he had put in 22 years of service, the company should at least give half the salary of half the period of his remaining service and absorb his wife into the firm on compassionate grounds. However, the officials refused all our demands at that time. They have decided to give the family Rs 11 lakh, and we have accepted it, considering that the workers cannot stretch things beyond their limits."

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