Baghjan Fire: Three foreign experts hurt in explosion

In what is said to be an explosion due to some technical glitch, three foreign experts, engaged in capping the fire in a gas well at Baghjan oil field in eastern Assam’s Tinsukia district were injured on Wednesday.

The explosion occurred near well number five. The three injured foreign experts have been rushed to a hospital in Dibrugarh. The medical team of the Oil India Limited accompanying the injured personnel said that all of them were out of danger.

The three injured are Anthony Steven Reynolds, Doug Dallas, Craig Neil Duncan. They are from M/s Alert Disaster Control company. Mr Tridip Hazarika, spokesperson of Oil India Limited, also confirmed the incident.

While narrating the accident, the experts of the Oil India Limited said, “During the disaster control process the experts were on their way to open the spool of the well which is essential before putting up the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) that finally douses the fire. It’s during that process that the blast occurred and three experts were injured.”

Pointing out that frequent protest of local organisations has come as a major hurdle in speeding up the process of containing the fire, sources in the Oil India limited informed that the team of experts was hesitant to work at the site due to the ongoing fierce protests in Baghjan on Tuesday.

Even the experts from ONGC were reluctant to work. Six foreign experts, who have been roped in to cap the natural gas well, have expressed their willingness to exit the operations.

The foreign experts were held captive by locals along with 200 personnel from several Indian agencies for over 18 hours at the oil field.

Sources said that locals had blocked all exits from the Baghjan blowout site on Saturday. This had forced Indian officials and foreign experts - three from Singapore, two from the US and one from Canada - to spend hours in torrential rain at the site.