Visakhapatnam: Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) employees had a miraculous escape from a fire mishap where hot metal of more than 1,300 degrees flowed out from a defunct pipe at the blast furnace-II on Friday. Since the mishap took place during lunch time no casualties were reported.
“Slag started flowing through the Tuyers, pipes which supply the air blast to the Blast Furnace for combustion purpose, from Blast Furnace-II at 1.30 pm. The Slag is supposed to be tapped from the tap holes, however due to malfunctioning of Tuyers, the Slag came through Tuyers on to the platform, causing fire at 10 feet height platform level. Fire tenders were rushed to the spot and put into action to douse the fire at the platform level. After good efforts by the CISF fire personnel and the employees, the fire was put off after an hour,” said a VSP official.
RINL CMD, P. Madhusudan, rushed to the spot. He informed that no one was injured and situation is under control. All necessary steps will be taken to revive the production at Blast Furnace-2 within in 2-3 days, he added. He also clarified that the other units in the plant are operating normally.
