17 injured in major blast at Srikakulam factory unit in Andhra

Jun 30, 2012 |

Tags:

fire

At least 17 workers were on Saturday injured, five of them seriously, in a major fire that broke out reportedly following a blast at the Nagarjuna Agrichem plant in Andhra Pradesh's Srikakulam district, police said.

"As per the initial reports there was a cylinder blast which triggered the blaze", Srikakulam Dy S.P. Arjun said without elaborating.

According to sources, around 200 workers were present at the time of the accident. All the injured have been admitted to Srikakulam-based Rajiv Institute of Medical Sciences, officials said.

Five fire engines were rushed to the spot to douse the fire which is still raging. However, senior district officials refused to comment saying they are investigating into what could have triggered the fire at the plant situated at Arinam Akkivalasa village this morning.

Nagarjuna Agrichem is a unit of Nagarjuna Fertilisers and Chemicals. Meanwhile, as a precautionary measure, the district authorities have started evacuating people from at least five villages, including Arinam Akkivalasa, Kesavarayuni Peta, Rayapadu, Boddapadu, situated in the vicinity of the site.

Top district officials, including district collector G. Venkatram Reddy, joint collector P. Bhasker and SP K.V.V. Gopala, are monitoring the operations.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/166493" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b81794841578e84864e0a7bf7f643d02" value="form-b81794841578e84864e0a7bf7f643d02" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85658693" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>