Incident of fire in Tatipaka-Lanco pipeline
28 06 2014
Posted: 27 Jun 2014 07:38 AM PDT
A fire broke out early today
along a natural gas pipeline of GAIL (India) Limited at Tatipaka in East
Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. Sixteen casualties have happened
and thirty injured are being treated in four hospitals in the vicinity.
The fire started at around 5:45
AM today along the Tatipaka – Lanco natural gas pipeline, approximately
50 metres from ONGC’s Tatipaka terminal and about 500 metres from the
GAIL terminal.
GAIL’s Crisis Management system
was invoked immediately; about eight fire tenders were pressed into
service and the fire was brought under control at around 7:00 AM.
Preliminary reports suggest
damage to a 1.5 metres length of the pipeline. The exact cause of the
incident is yet to be ascertained.
Hon’ble Chief Minister of
Andhra Pradesh Shri N Chandrababu Naidu, Hon’ble Union Minister of State
for Petroleum and Natural Gas (Independent Charge) Shri Dharmendra
Pradhan, Shri Saurabh Chandra, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and
Natural Gas, Shri B C Tripathi, CMD, GAIL visited the incident site and
Apollo Hospital at Kakinada to meet the injured.
GAIL is extending all possible
immediate support to the persons displaced / affected because of this
incident. Suitable compensation is also being extended.
Contractors,
construction equipment and spares are available at site for the
restoration of pipeline. Restoration job can only be started after
getting clearance from district authorities. It is estimated that it
would take about 4-5 days for restoration after the site is made
accessible to GAIL by the district authorities.
Out of all the 30 customers,
normal supplies are being maintained for 29 customers. Only Lanco Power
has taken shutdown due to reasons of low pressure. Safety confirmation
on a parallel line, which is being inspected, would resume gas supply to
Lanco Power at the earliest
Round the clock “Control Rooms”
are operational at Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh and NCR respectively.
“GAIL Helpdesks” have been set up at Apollo Hospital and Trust hospital
at Kakinada, KIMS hospital at Amlapuram and Balbolini Hospital at
Rajahmundry to facilitate the families of the injured.
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