One person succumbed to the injuries that he sustained after a blast in a reactor at Hetero Drugs located at Nakapalle in Visakhapatnam district, in the early hours of Februrary 24.
The blast took place around 7.30 p.m. in one of reactors in the unit on Wednesday and five persons were injured. Two were said to be critical and one among them Sai Ram, died while undergoing treatment. The condition of Gangadhar is still said to be critical and is undergoing treatment in a private hospital in the city.
How did it happen?
As per the senior officers from the Department of Factories, the Hetero unit at Nakapalle is into manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) or bulk drugs for the domestic and semi-regulatory markets.
On Wednesday night, after neutralising the material in one reactor by adding some amount of nitric acid the material was transferred to another reactor.
The process was complete but we suspect that some amount of material was stuck in the bottom pipeline after the transfer. As per norms, the temperature to store the material is minus 20 degree Celsius. But as per our initial assessment, the material was stuck in the pipeline for about one-and-a-half hour and during this period the temperature would have shot up and this might have triggered the blast, said Deputy Inspector of Factories, Mr. Narayana Rao.
The Factories Department officials is verifying why the material was stuck in the pipeline and whether there was proper insulation in the pipeline to maintain the -20 temperature. As per the officials, the reactor was not damaged and only the pipeline had blasted, which resulted in the injuries and the death. As per the hospital officials, shreds of metals from the pipeline hit the workers at high velocity just like how splinters from a bomb do.
As per Mr. Narayana Rao, the reactor was on test run and as of now, till further investigation, that part of the plant has been shut down.
Meanwhile, the Nakapalle police have booked cases under IPC Section 304 a (causing death by negligence), IPC 338 (causing grievous hurt by act of endangering life or personal safety of others) and other relevant IPC Sections.
Not the first time
This was not for the first time that such an accident has occurred in the unit. In January 2013, four workers had died and two were injured in a reactor blast. The police had then booked cases under similar IPC Sections and the company officials had then conceded that instead of using SS (stainless steel) pipes they had used HDPE (High Density Polyethylene Pipes) in the reactors.
The officials from the Department of Factories had also said that the use of HDPE pipes had reportedly led to the accident. In 2016, one worker had died in a blast in the scrap yard of the factory.
NGT notice
Recently, based on a sustained agitation and a complaint filed by the members from the neighbouring villages, National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered an inquiry. The residents from about nine neighbouring villages, including from those that are predominantly fishing villages had complained that the company has surreptitiously laid a pipeline for a distance of about 4km for pumping its effluents into the sea. They complained of damage to environment, depletion of fish catch and groundwater pollution, said V. S. Krishna of Human Rights Forum.
Demand for safety audit
Meanwhile, the district secretary of CITU G. Koteswara Rao, demanded that the State government should immediately conduct a safety audit of all industries located in SEZs and as well as outside SEZs. He pointed out that in the last six years about 90 persons were injured and 30 had died in accidents in pharmaceutical companies alone.
The government should not only conduct a safety audit and examine the transparency of the Departments concerned but also check into the old accidents files and action taken on them, said former bureaucrat EAS Sarma.
The High Power Committee that had investigated the Hindustan Polymers styrene monomer leak had recommended the setting up of a Factory Safety Board. But that appears to be still stuck on the drawing board itself and the recommendations are yet to see the light of the day, said Mr. Sarma.
