Six killed and 12 injured in major fire at pharma unit

Some of the injured critical; ₹50 lakh ex-gratia announced

At least six persons were killed and 12 others were injured in a major fire accident that occurred in Porus Laboratories Pvt. Ltd, a pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing unit, in Akkireddygudem village, Musunuru Mandal of Eluru district, near Vijayawada, during the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

All the deceased and the injured were workers of the company which manufactures active pharmaceuticals ingredients (APIs), pharmaceutical intermediates and speciality chemicals at the unit.

A majority of the workers, including four of the deceased and seven of the injured present at the site of the accident, are from Bihar.

The deceased were identified as Undrapati Krishna (34) of Reddigudem in NTR district and Boppidi Kiran (35) of Akkireddy Gudem of Eluru district of Andhra Pradesh, Ravi Das (40), Manoj Kumar (25), Suvaas Ravi Das (32) and Abhudas Ravi Das (27) of Nalanda district in Bihar, according to the police.

While five persons were charred to death on the spot, one person succumbed to burn injuries while undergoing treatment at the Government General Hospital (GGH) in Vijayawada, according to the police. 

The injured were rushed to the area hospital in Nuzvid and later shifted to GGH, Vijayawada. Later, some of them were shifted to a private hospital in the city for better treatment. According to the hospital authorities, the condition of some of the injured was critical as they sustained more than 40% burns.

According to police and fire personnel who rushed to the spot, the accident occurred at around 11 p.m. on Wednesday when a stainless steel (SS) Reactor exploded reportedly following a gas leakage.