A day after a reactor blew up at a bulk drug manufacturing premises in Sangareddy district, the site looked like a war zone with crumpled walls, glass shards lying everywhere. In the morning, the Fire Department officials located and pulled out one more body from under the rubble taking the death toll to six. The explosion at SB Organics Ltd in Hathnoora, located around 52 kilometres from Hyderabad, was felt in a radius of about one kilometre from the site, said witnesses.
The 4.5 acre factory, located about 300 metres left from the highway road in Patancheru, has three units. The explosion was reported in unit 1, said an official from the Fire Department deployed on the spot. The impact of the explosion was such that due to its tremors, all the glass panels from the windows of the second unit in a three-storey building were shattered.
“As per our enquiry, there were about 35 employees in the premises at the time of mishap. About eight to nine of them were in unit 1. According to the management, with the body found in the morning, the number of employees at the plant has been tallied,” informed Srinivas, Regional Fire Officer of Sangareddy.
The blast killed four individuals on the spot, including D. Ravi Kumar Sharma, one of the Directors of the firm, Subramanyam, Suresh Paul and Dayalan, and injured 20 others. One of the injured individuals succumbed while undergoing treatment at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), Hyderabad on Wednesday night.
Employees and families of the injured stage a protest
On Thursday morning, the employees of SB Organics and the families/relatives of those who sustained injuries gathered at the plant and staged a protest demanding compensation for medical treatment.
A chemist working at the plant, who was part of the protest group, said that they have not received any word from the management. “All their phones have been switched off. We have been working here for the last 20 years and this is how they treat us? The families have already spent lakhs in treatment. An update about any compensation has not been given yet. We are worried about the families of the deceased in different States as well. They should arrange and ensure that the bodies reach their hometown safely for final rites,” he said.
Of the deceased, Subramanyam is a native of Andhra Pradesh, Suresh Paul hails from Madhya Pradesh and Dayalan is from Tamil Nadu.
BRS senior leader T. Harish Rao demands compensation from government
Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) senior leader T. Harish Rao arrived at SB Organics on Thursday morning after visiting the families at the private hospital. He interacted with the crowd and demanded that the government must provide ₹50 lakh per family to the deceased and ₹25 lakh each to the families of the injured.
He said the BRS will present ₹50,000 each to the deceased’s family besides extending all the support to ensure the bodies are shifted safely.
“The employees claim that an outdated reactor is the cause of the explosion. The Government is colluding with the management and being negligent in treating them right. The medical treatment is also not up to date. The families are concerned about the expenses and their well being. I demand that better treatment should be given at better medical facilities,” he said.
Police book a case
The Patancheru police booked a case against the management under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC. “We are probing as to what triggered the reactor blast and will be taking action accordingly as per our findings,” said the police.
