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IOC pipeline fire brought under control

Fire-fighters brought under control a massive fire which broke out in an oil pipeline in the state of Bihar on Thursday, severely burning one person, a government official said.

The fire erupted in Indian Oil Corp's Barauni-Kanpur product pipeline near a railway track in Raghunathpur, 79 km from Patna, the state capital, the company's pipeline official K K Jha said.

Bhojpur district magistrate Sudhir Kumar said it took fire-fighters about six hours to bring the blaze under control. "It's going down. We have handed over the operations to the IOC teams who have arrived near the site."

Another senior IOC official at Barauni where the oil company has a refinery said there were no reports of any deaths so far. But Kumar said one person had received severe burn injuries and a number had suffered breathing problems.

The IOC official said the fire was caused by a leakage. "There was heavy leakage in the pipeline at two places. The valves have been switched off," he said.

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

Kumar said rail traffic between Patna and Mughalsarai in eastern Uttar Pradesh which had been disrupted by the fire would resume soon.

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