Kochi: Thick plumes of smoke emanating from the Forward Tank, located at bottom of the ONGC oilrig ‘Sagar Bhushan’, made rescue operations difficult so much so that the last body was retrieved more than two hours after the explosion, according to officials of the Cochin Port Trust. Soon after the blast, the firemen onboard the ship, deployed as part of Safety on Site procedure, started fire fighting. The fire fighting tenders joined them five minutes later at around 9.20 am.
“However, by the time, plumes started billowing into the air though the fire was doused. Since the smoke started coming from the direction of the Potable Water Tank located at the bottom half of the ship at its front portion, the workers inside found it difficult to escape. There are only a couple of manhole hatches to enter and exit from the bottom half,” an official said.
Though tripods and vertical structures were brought in, the smoke prevented the fire officials and rescue team from reaching the workers trapped below. “We’re not sure whether the blast was from the tank or the AC plant behind it. Slowly we started evacuating the workers. While 12 of them were rescued, five died inhaling the smoke. The last body was retrieved only by 11.20 am,” the official said.
The gas leakage was first reported by one of the workers K.B. Jayan, who later died. He informed the same to Senior Fireman C.S. Unnikrishnan. Both rushed to the plant in a bid to plug it but the blast happened within minutes, killing five including the duo. There were nearly 200 workers inside the shipyard at the time of the incident. However, it’s estimated at only 12 of them were either inside or outside the potable water tank at that time doing cutting and welding works.
No clarity yet on cause of accident
The exact nature of the explosion inside the Sagar Bhushan, the vessel under repair in the dry dockyard of the Cochin Shipyard Ltd, remains a matter conjecture for its top management and most of trade union leaders. Although it was widely mentioned that the blast took place in its ballast tank, the CSL's official statement stated that the incident took place near the AC compartment area of the ship.
CSL chairman and managing director Madhu S. Nair told reporters that the preliminary assessment showed a gas leak had led to the mishap. Details of the leak and the gas could be ascertained only after a detailed investigation, he added. A ballast tank is a compartment filled with water used for maintaining the balance of a floating vessel. According to maritime experts, water is easier to handle compared with the stone or iron ballast used earlier.
The standard operational principle in undertaking works in the area demands a proper safety audit in the area before allowing workers to undertake their assigned job, says P. Jinesh, joint secretary of the Cochin Shipyard Employees Association. "We needed to ascertain whether the mandatory 'hot work permit' exercise to ensure that the area is free from the presence of dangerous gas was undertaken on Tuesday." He also expressed the possibility of the blast occurred during the mandatory checks by officials.
