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Fire breaks out in IOC pipeline after leak near Patna

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

A massive fire broke out following a leakage in Indian Oil Corporation's Barauni-Kanpur oil pipeline, 30 km west of Ara in Bihar, at around 7:00 on Thursday morning

Train services on Howrah-Delhi main line have been disrupted due to the fire, as the pipeline is almost parallel to the railway line.

No casualties due to the fire have yet been reported. The incident occurred near Sikria Halt railway station.

According to sources, the partially underground pipeline developed a leakage, which prompted many villagers to rush to the spot and collect oil even as it gushed from the cracked pipeline.

Local residents told rediff.com that the leaking oil suddenly caught fire and spread over a large area.

However, other sources said that the oil caught fire when some people set it alight after a dispute over the loot of the spilling oil.

Railway sources said that the fire is spread in the radius of three to four kilometres and is likely to cause massive destruction.

Incidentally, this is not the first incident of leakage in the Barauni-Kanpur pipeline. Sometime ago a fire had raged near Kariya and Dumraon on the same Ara-Buxar pipeline.

Indian Oil Corporation officials from Baranui have rushed to the spot with firefighting equipment.

Fire tenders from Indian Oil Corporation bottling plant in Ara have also been pressed into service.

Senior officials of the divisional railway manager office from Danapur and the district magistrate and superintendent of Police of Ara too have left for Barauni.

Reuters adds: "We got information that there is a fire in the pipeline near the railway tracks in a place called Raghunathpur," IOC pipeline official K K Jha said. He said the area was 79 km from Patna.

Another senior IOC official who did not want to be identified said there were no reports of any casualties so far.

"We are gathering information. We have no reports of casualties so far. It is too early to give any assessment of the extent of damage," the official told Reuters by phone from Barauni in Bihar. IOC has a refinery in Barauni.

Sudhir Kumar, district magistrate of Bhojpur, told Reuters that two people had received severe burn injuries and many people had breathing problems.

"The situation is not grim but if the smoke keeps blowing in one direction, it could be a problem," he said.

Kumar said the fire, probably caused by a crack in the pipeline, started at about 3:00 a.m. and was still blazing. "We hope to control it by the evening."

The IOC official at Barauni said the pipeline was filled with petrol when the fire broke out due to a leakage.

"There was heavy leakage in the pipeline at two places. The valves have been switched off but the fire has spread," he said.

He said the affected pipeline area contained about 2,500 kilolitres of petrol and most of it had gone waste.

He said rail traffic between Patna and Mughalsarai in Uttar Pradesh had been affected due to the fire.

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