An Oil & Natural Gas Corporation oil rig caught fire following a heavy blowout in an onshore well being drilled in the Krishna-Godavari basin in Ahdhra Pradesh on Thursday afternoon.
Seven ONGC personnel were reported missing even as the district authorities evacuated the people from three adjoining villages to safer places.
The accident occurred at Tandavapalli village, 7 km from Amalapuram town. There was a sudden blowout in the gas well when the drilling was going on. The blowout was so severe that the oil rig and four vehicles parked nearby melted in the heat.
7 persons missing
ONGC officials said 30 people were on the rig at the time of the accident. While 23 escaped safely from the inferno, seven employees were reported missing. Their fate is not yet known, although ONGC officials believe that they could have jumped to the other side of the rig and gone to nearby villages.
The flames from the inferno leapt more than 150 feet and could be seen from a long distance. As a precautionary measure, the authorities have evacuated people from three nearby villages to safer places.
Although fire tenders were rushed to the area, they were of no use and the ONGC officials were putting in place plans to cap the blowout, which would take days or weeks.
Meanwhile, in an official statement issued by ONGC, the oil major said: 'At about 11.30 a.m, September 8, there was a blowout in Exploratory Well PSAR at Pasarlapudi near Amalapuram, Rajahmundry.'
'The rig crew has been evacuated and there is no casualty. ONGC's crisis management team based in Narsapur, which is well trained and equipped to handle such situation, has already been mobilised at the site,' the statement added.
This is the second such case in quick succession after the ONGC rig caught fire at Bombay High.
Sources said that the blowout this time was more severe than the one at Pasarlapudi a decade ago. On January 8, 1995, the Pasarlapudi-19 gas well being drilled by ONGC near Amalapuram blew out while the operator was retrieving a stuck fish in deviated hole.
On March 15, International Well Control and ONGC's Crisis Management Team completely extinguished the fire, capping the well and killing the blowout, which was termed as one of the two or three biggest blowouts at that time.