Though no loss of life has been reported so far, the fear that the fire might spread to nearby tanks made people leave the port area immediately. Sources said 40 per cent of the population of Kandla left for the nearby Gandhidham town immediately after the incident, while cargo handling operations at the port also came to a standstill with most of the casual and regular labourers leaving their work mid-way for safety. Even, IFFCO Kandla close to the site of the accident shut its operation, sources said.

“We came to know about the incident at 11.25 in the morning and immediately rushed to the area for controlling the blaze. We had to undertake two simultaneous tasks. One, to put out fire in the affected tank and secondly, to cool the two-tree surrounding tanks with 10 water jets to keep their temperature down. We pressed into service our four most-sophisticated fire fighters along with 25 of our men. Though the situation is in control, we have to wait till the fire in the tank is completely extinguished,” said A J Maheshwari, head of the fire brigade wing of the Kandla Port Trust (KPT).

While he couldn’t throw much light on what caused the fire to break out in the first place, sources said the accident occurred due to the safety system in the tank which failed to work when the pressure inside the it reached its maximum.

“This pressure caused the top cover to blow up in the air, and it fell to the ground in pieces. Fortunately none of the company personnel were in the vicinity, as they were in a tea break then. Otherwise a major disaster would have occurred,” said an official.

H C Venkatesh, traffic manager, said though port operations were partly affected, normalcy was fast returning with workers of the evening shift reporting to duty at four in the evening as usual. The situation has also been brought under control, he said.