Naroda Gidc Factory Blast Pressure Vessel Explosion Ahmedabad

One person was killed and three were injured in a multiple event disaster at a chemical factory in Naroda GIDC in Ahmedabad.

According to the local police, Ramesh Mulji Parmar died while three other workers, Rajendra Prasad Bhagora, Jayanti and Naran, were injured in the incident.

The incident took place around noon and the Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AFES) received the call around 12:18 pm on Friday when a pressurised vessel at the MSN Intermediates Pvt Ltd factory exploded. This was followed by a secondary fire caused by the blast. This blaze was in a truck filled with hydrogen tanks, fire brigade officials said.

More than 40 firefighters were involved in the operation.

Firefighters had to battle an essentially transparent flame for several hours and look for any trapped workers in the rubble of the unit. A Hydrogen fire is almost invisible in daylight as its emission wavelength is in the ultraviolet range. It was earlier believed that there were five workers inside the factory but it ultimately turned out that there were only four persons inside.

Chief Fire Officer (CFO) Amit Dongre said, “There was a chemical reactor on the ground floor of the factory and we believe there was an exothermic reaction. The manhole of the vessel which was on the first floor level, flew off in this incident and hit the bottom of the second floor of the factory where three persons were sitting for lunch. These three people fell to the ground floor, were rescued by the firefighters and sent to Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.”

CFO Dongre said, “Due to this incident, the reactor ruptured and caused a secondary fire. This secondary fire was in a truck filled with hydrogen tanks which was inside the premises at that time. When the firefighters reached the spot, the explosion had already occurred and so they began spraying water on the fire in the hydrogen truck.”

On the nature of the hydrogen fire, CFO Dongre said, “A Hydrogen flame cannot usually be seen in daylight. But our firefighters managed to douse it while another team rescued the four workers and moved them to the hospital.”

A fire brigade officer who was on scene said that they used 80,000 litres of water to douse the flames over two hours, most of which was spent on dousing the fire in the hydrogen tanks mounted on the truck. He said that multiple hydrogen tanks had been breached by the explosion and the entire truck was on fire. Firefighters had to undertake an incursion to turn off the valve of the pipeline attached to the hydrogen tanks on one end and to the storage tanks inside the factory.