Five Killed in Blast Onboard Modu Sagar Bhushan
Five people were killed and 7 injured yesterday (February 13), in an unfortunate fire incident onboard Sagar Bhushan, an oil rig of ONGC, undergoing repairs at Cochin Shipyard.
The Chairman and Managing Director of Cochin Shipyard has announced an immediate ex gratia of INR 10 lakhs (USD 15560) for the families of the deceased.
All treatment expenses of the injured will be met by the company as per its existing policies. All necessary assistance is being provided by the Company to those affected, and the entire senior leadership is monitoring the process. Senior civil and police officials are on the ground and appropriate actions is being taken.
The Ship Sagar Bhushan arrived at Cochin Shipyard on 07 Dec 2017 for drydock repairs. It was drydocked on 12 January 2018 and it was to be undocked on 28th Feb 2018. The work completion was scheduled by 07th April 2018.
At around 0915, in the morning today, a phone call was received at CSL informing that there is a gas leakage near the AC compartment area of the ship undergoing repair in the drydock No 1.
Immediate instruction was passed on to stop all hot work, but the explosion had already occurred in the forward area of ship, near to the AC plant by then. Fire tenders rushed to the ship immediately, along with ambulance. Firemen onboard the ship and the fire tender that reached the spot after the blast worked together to extinguish the fire.
CSL has assured it places Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) as one of its core values in operations. In order to strengthen the HSE awareness levels among the workforce briefings are given, HSE alerts are issued and it is made part of the tools box talks. HSE performance in CSL has been consistently good.
