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“Experts believe the fuel will be expended by Wednesday and fire fighters will be able to move in and completely extinguish the fire. Vehicular restriction into the area has been relaxed to accommodate traffic,” Rajasthan home secretary Pradeep Sen said. He added that the last approach road to the IOC depot would remain blocked till safety experts deemed it safe.
Meanwhile, a division bench of the Rajasthan High Court, responding to a PIL on Tuesday, asked the state government for steps it had taken to control the fire as well as measures adopted to prevent such incidents in future. On Monday, two police complaints were filed against IOC under sections of the IPC for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and death due to negligence.
With the Rajasthan Pollution Control Board (RPCB) reporting an alarming increase in the levels of Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM), the Jaipur district administration on Tuesday distributed masks and protective eye gear to those living around the depot. Following complaints of itchy eyes and breathing difficulty from nearby villages, the government on Monday and Tuesday sent two teams of doctors to visit affected areas. However state principal secretary, health, G S Sandhu said no severe cases were reported.
The RPCB has been monitoring air emissions at five different locations since Friday. However, officials stated they were measuring only four parameters - RSPM, SPM, Sulphur dioxide and Nitrogen oxide - even as the emissions from the fire could also include carbon gases including benzene and hydrocarbons, which pose serious health hazards. A senior RPCB official said a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) team from New Delhi was on its way to Jaipur to measure hydrocarbons and benzene.
The highest recorded SPM and RSPM levels available with the RPCB were 406 and 268, as compared to the government standards of 200 microgram per cubic meter and 100 microgram per cubic meter. RPCB chairman V S Singh said they would begin monitoring emissions at two more locations from Tuesday evening to collect better data. Incidentally, the impact of the fire would be felt not at ground zero but wherever the smoke finally settles down. In a state suffering from acute drought, experts maintained that rain would prove to be the most dangerous factor in such cases. CPCB zonal officer A Sudhakar said, “It will be lucky if there is no rain, otherwise all the pollutants high in the air right now will come right back to the ground.” He added that this would not only be harmful to human life, but would also damage property and agricultural land.
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Kuldip. You are correct in terms of new installations and the OISD standards cover these sorts of issues comparable in quality with any International standards. The problem is that, like in any other country, older installations are often not required to be upgraded to match the current standards, e.g. if you had bought a car 10 years ago, you are not (necessarily)required to retrofit it with the latest safety gadgets. The problem is with what is really necessary = should be mandatory for a safety retrofit and government authorities struggle with that determination as all encumbents scream that they cannot afford it. So would you if you had to upgrade your car for a "nice to have" (in your opinion)safety feature. Personally, I believe that all oil facilities should always be upgraded if they pose a public hazard by proximity. Tanks inside IOC facilities sufficiently far away from other people could be allowed to burn out. This was not the case in Jaipur and elsewhere in India.
What is perturbing me most is that one of the worst mishap could not touch our insensitive sycophant PM his highness MMS
If I understand correctly any hydrocarbon installation is suppose to have hydrocarbon detectors to give alarm on detecting any leakages. The oil tanks are suppose to have foam flooding system which should come in operation automatically on sensing any fire in tnanks. Further, there should have been water cooling rings on the tanks to prevent spreading of fire. Did none of them work or they were disabled or non-functional leading to disaster and death.The state government and the MB Lal Committee appointed by Ministry of Oil and Gas need to examine these issues in the public interest.