Cherlapally fire: Management claims short circuit, Factories Dept says missing spark arrestor could have triggered explosion

Cherlapally fire: Management claims short circuit, Factories Dept says missing spark arrestor could have triggered explosion

A fire that broke out at a chemical factory at IDA Cherlapally on Tuesday evening might have been triggered by static current in solvents, a Factories Department official said.

While the management has cited ‘electrical short circuit’ as the cause of the fire, Medchal-Malkajgiri Inspector of Factories K. Sridhara Rao said that preliminary examination of the factory premises tells a different story. Notices will be served on the management of Sarvodaya Solvent Pvt Ltd shortly, he said.

“While the fire safety system was in place, it seems to have been triggered by sparks from the goods carrier vehicle parked in the premises reacting to highly inflammable chemicals. This caused the structural column of the factory to collapse,” the official explained, adding that, “We are yet to verify if the goods carrier was loaded with chemicals and had a spark arrestor. The driver is incommunicado.”

A spark arrestor typically traps and pulverises hot exhaust carbon particles expelled from an internal combustion engine, preventing the propagation of flames and explosions. A variant of this, also called flame arrestors, are used in chemical storage tanks and piping systems that transport flammable gases and liquids between various processing units, to prevent flames. The department is verifying whether the factory had these installed.

“Although the management is claiming that the factory was shut between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Tuesday for maintenance, solvent distillation (a process to separate liquid mixture of two or more substances by application of heat) was underway in the premises at the time of the accident,” he clarified.

The department found at least seven tanks, each having 5-10 kilolitre of solvents and chemicals. Four of these were mixed solvent tanks and others contained chemicals like methanol, toluene and cyclohexane, which are flammable.

Meanwhile, Medchal-Malkajgiri District Fire Officer V. Srinivas said that the management has been unresponsive since the time of the accident and has not responded to several calls in connection with the investigation.