Kancheepuram: At least 12 persons were injured in a major fire reported in a an LPG in Tamil Nadu's Kacheepuram district on Wednesday evening. Police said the blaze occurred while the employees were transporting the cylinders within the godown.
Police said they received the fire alert at around 6pm from the LPG gas cylinder godown located in Devariyambakkam near Walajabad about 60km from Chennai. At the time of the accident there were 10 employees working at the facility and all of them were injured, they said.
The fire also spread to the adjacent residences and led to further injuries. Seven fire tenders were pressed into service and the fire was brought under control after 3 hours. All the injured had been admitted to the government hospital in neighbouring Chengalpattu district.
Speaking to reporters, PC Thenmozhi, IGP, North Zone said the preliminary investigations had revealed that the "explosion" occurred when the employees were handling the cylinders and that the management had claimed that they have necessary permissions to operate the facility.
"We will scrutinise the permissions. Necessary action will be initiated against any non-compliance, if any, after a thorough investigation. Fire and Rescue Services arrived and managed to control the blaze with all safety precautions and are in the process of cooling the place down," she said.
"We have removed the people from the neighbouring areas and the fire site had been kept out of bounds as it still has several filled (LPG) cylinders. The Fire department, at present, is tasked with cooling down the place. Once that is done, the Fire service will move the filled cylinders from the accident site to safety," the IGP added.
