CHENNAI: A worker was killed and another sustained burn injuries in an explosion at the control room of Chennai corporation’s Bio-CNG plant at Chinnasekkadu, on Manali Main Road around 10.15 pm on Saturday. The city corporation has constituted a team to identify the cause of the explosion.
The deceased was identified as Saravana Kumar (30), a native of Namakkal, who worked as an operations engineer at the plant. Bhaskar, a 36-year-old driver at the facility, suffered burns on his hands and is currently receiving treatment at the Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital. His condition is presently stable, said sources. The incident also resulted in a traffic pile-up in the area for several hours on Saturday night as nearby residents gathered around the facility.
Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health officials, who inspected the site, stated that the explosion did not appear to be a cylinder blast, as the pressure remains intact at 220 bar. “Given the intensity, it is unlikely to have been caused solely by an electrical short circuit or an AC fault. Preliminary findings suggest a minute gas leak from a nearby plant may have entered the confined control room through its window, allowing the gas to accumulate. An electric spark near the UPS in the room, which, in combination with the trapped gas could have triggered the explosion,” an official said.
Since the plant’s vessels are in an open space, any leaked gas would disperse into the air. “We couldn’t detect the gas leak due to the absence of gas detectors in the facility,” the official said, adding that this is only a possible scenario, and the exact cause is yet to be confirmed.
A senior corporation official said the gas pipelines at the facility are intact and there does not appear to be a gas leak.
Initially, a short circuit was suspected to be the cause of the explosion, but the corporation’s electrical department staff who were at the spot said that the circuit breakers were functional. Speaking to TNIE, a corporation staff from the electrical department said, “If the incident was caused by an electrical short-circuit, the entire area would have been charred, but that is not the case here.”
According to staff at the plant that TNIE spoke to, Saravana Kumar and Bhaskar had entered the control room, which regulates the nearby purifying plant’s operations, to switch it off, when the explosion occurred.
The impact destroyed the control room, created a gaping hole in the facility’s compound wall, and trapped Saravana under the debris. It took over two hours to identify Saravana. His body was sent to Stanley Hospital for postmortem, said locals.
A senior staff at the plant said the control room, where the incident occurred, regulates the process to purify methane gas produced from wet waste. Since the injured worker reported seeing a spark, an electrical short-circuit was initially suspected, he added.
Mahasakthi Bio-Enercon manages the facility through Spark Biogas Private Limited under a public-private partnership model. Solid wet waste from zones 1 to 5 in the northern region is brought here for processing.
“I was at a shop when the blast shook the area. The buildings vibrated so intensely that many thought it was an earthquake,” a 60-year-old resident said.
GCC commissioner J Kumaragurubaran said technical advisor Ceide Consultants has been hired to determine the cause of the explosion. “There is no issue with the digester. The exact cause will be known once the technical consultant submits their report,” he said.