Two officials die, 16 fall sick after ammonia gas leak at Iffco plant
PRAYAGRAJ : Two officials died and 16 other personnel fell sick after an incident of ammonia gas leak at Iffco’s Phulpur fertiliser plant in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj district late on Tuesday night, officials said on Wednesday.
Six personnel were admitted to hospitals in the city after their condition deteriorated. One of them was later shifted to Lucknow, officials added.
The two officials who died were identified as Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) deputy manager Abhay Nandan and assistant manager V P Singh.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each for the next of kin of the two officials killed in the accident. In his statement, the chief minister expressed grief over the deaths and gave instructions for proper treatment of the others affected. He also ordered that the accident and its cause be investigated properly.
The labour commissioner, UP, has appointed deputy director (Factory) Abhay Chandra Gupta as the inquiry officer. The probe would focus on the cause of the accident and establish whether it was the result of a human error, a technical fault or other reasons, officials said.
According to Iffco public relations officer Vishwajeet Srivastava, the leakage took place late night on Tuesday at the PF-1 unit; it was controlled and stopped later on.
The PF-1 unit of Iffco plant, located around 25 kilometres from the city in the trans-Ganga area of the Prayagraj district, developed a snag and ammonia gas started to leak.
Iffco officials said the accident took place when the tie rods of an ammonia plunger pump suddenly broke and got detached, leading to heavy ammonia leakage. Iffco ordered a technical investigation into the cause of the gas leakage for which a committee has been set up.
“We deeply regret the sad and unfortunate accident happened yesterday night around 10.30pm due to mechanical failure at #IFFCO #Phulpur Ammonia Urea unit in #Prayagraj. Our
UP CM ANNOUNCED COMPENSATION AND ASKED FOR INVESTIGATION; IFFCO, TOO, SETS UP TECHNICAL PROBE
employees at the site fought bravely to handle the situation,” Iffco CEO and managing director U S Awasthi tweeted in Hindi on Wednesday.
“Our emergency response group, fire and safety team and plant operating staff bravely fought with the emergency situation and restricted the leakage to small area within the plant and normalised it in a short time,” Iffco later said in its statement.
Deputy labour commissioner, Prayagraj, Rakesh Dwivedi inspected the plant premises. He confirmed that 18 individuals were exposed to the leaked ammonia gas.
Earlier, after the unit was affected, assistant manager VP Singh, 47, who was present on the scene, went to repair it and was exposed to the leaking gas. Seeing him in trouble, deputy manager Abhhay Nandan, 57, rushed to his aid and was also exposed to the gas leak. By the time others on the scene got the two officials out, the gas had spread, affecting others. Experts of Iffco then arrived and managed to stop the leakage, officials added.
This is the third time in the last two-and-a-half years that incidents of ammonia gas leak have occurred at the Phulpur plant. In April 2019, four employees had taken ill and similarly in May 2018, nine persons had fallen sick after the leakage of gas.