Incident Report Subject: Major fire at Indian Oil Corporation’s Hazira depot Date of Email report: Sat 05/01/2013 Report Detail:
An explosion set off a major fire at a diesel storage tank of Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) Hazira terminal in Surat on Saturday at 12.30pm. IOC sources said the tank number 4 had developed a leak three days ago and welding work by three workers from IOC's Vadodara unit was on when the explosion occurred. The whereabouts of the welders were not known. However, Surat district collector J P Shivhare said there were no reports of any casualties so far. Meanwhile, 500 fire fighters from Surat, Navsari and Billimora were battling to extinguish the fire. Fire fighters from ONGC, L&T, Essar and Reliance Industries were also assisting them. At least 25 water tankers are engaged in putting out the fire in the tank, while over 55 fire tenders and 30 water tankers trying to prevent spreading of fire to other tanks in the vicinity. It would still take several hours before the fire is extinguished, sources said. There are 17 tanks in the depot located at Icchapur near Batha in Hazira, some 18 km away from Surat city. Each tank has a capacity to store 55 lakh litres of petroleum products. So far the IOC has suffered a loss of about Rs 50 crore and this could go up to Rs 150 crore, sources said. There are 40 petrol rail wagons of ONGC stationed near the IOC terminal depot. The first priority of the authorities is to shift them to a safe location. Pankaj Patel, chief fire officer, Surat Municipal Corporation, said the upper lid of the tank was blown 30 metres away in the explosion. He said the billowing smoke was making it difficult for the fire fighters and the night could make the matters worse. Patel said there was a requirement of 22,000 litres of water per minute to put out the fire and check its spread. He said assistance has also been sought from Ahmedabad and Vadodara fire brigades. Additional Documentation:
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