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One Dead, Five Injured in Mangalore Refinery Blast

  • One worker was killed and five were injured in a blast inside the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) here on Saturday morning.While Nagesh (26) from Kulai was brought dead to the hospital, Mahesh, Siraj (23), Basheer (24), Shrinivas (33) and Ashwith (23) sustained minor fractures and burns, Deputy Medical Superintendent of Kasturba Medical Hospital, Anand Venugopal, told mediapersons. He said that the condition of the injured was stable.There were different accounts of what caused the blast. According to the workers, Nagesh was carrying out welding work on a pump in a pit related to the Oil Water Sewer (OWS) when the explosion took place. Another worker said that the blast also caused a fire which was put out by the MRPL's fire tender.

  • Mr. Venugopal said that though Nagesh appeared to have succumbed to a head injury, the cause of death would be clear only after the post mortem report was out. There were no other major injuries on his body.While Mahesh is an MRPL employee, the five other victims, including Nagesh, were contract workers engaged by Entech Constructions and Shri Ganesh Constructions.According to MRPL's Deputy General Manager (Corporate Communications), Lekshmi Kumaran, the blast and fire had occurred in a pit next to the Sulphur Recovery Unit II.

Previous accidents

  • On April 16, 2009, a fire broke out in a cooling tower and on June 5, 2009, a 30-foot-high naphtha tank saw a similar incident.On August 24, 2009, a short-circuit in substation IV of the Oil Movement and Storage area caused closure of nine out of 10 crude-oil refining units for several days. This also caused a fire. On September 2, 2009, there was one in electrical substation number 27. The fire alarm was found not activated on orders from the management in violation of protocol for petroleum refineries.

Safety award

  • The management has confirmed these incidents within the refinery in 2009. The MRPL was awarded the “Unnatha Suraksha Puraskar” in 2009 and 2010 by the Karnataka Chapter of the National Safety Council of India. The council is an autonomous body set up under the Union Ministry of Labour.

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