COIMBATORE: Five workers at the Cordite Factory (10 km from Udhagamandalam) in the Nilgiris were killed, and two injured, following a blast at 3.15 pm on Thursday afternoon when a group of employees were engaged in mixing chemicals for the manufacture of propellants used in firearms and artillery.
Two other workers, Sanni and Ilango, are stated to be in a serious condition.
V Anandan of Othanatti, B Gopi of Namakkal, Balasubramanian, 40, of Ramasamy Thottam near Aruvankadu, Subramaniam of Coonoor and Jeyaraj of Thankadu were the five employees besides Ilango who were inside the building. The bodies of the victims have been kept inside the Cordite factory hospital.
The General Manager of the factory G Ashok Kumar said, “An accident occurred in the dough making unit in Building No 2 causing an explosion.
There were six employees inside. Of them, Ilango ran out suffering injuries. He is undergoing treatment in our hospital and is safe. Of the remaining, one body has been recovered but we are unable to identify as it is heavily mutilated”.
The explosion led to the caving in of the entire structure at building No 2 of the 106-year-old establishment set up in the high-security area at Aruvankadu. “Ten more employees have suffered minor injuries. Some of them have been treated as outpatients.
They are all safe,” the GM said.
“This is an accident not sabotage.
This factory had suffered an accident in 1992. We do not know the cause yet.
Enquiries will be conducted on Friday by Defence Ministry’s ballistic and chemical experts. There will also be multi-disciplinary enquiries. Only after that, the cause will be known,” he added.
Nilgiris Collector Archana Patnaik, DIG Bala Naga Devi and District S P Kaliraj Mahesh Kumar reached the spot and along with the Western Zone IG P Sivanandi, they supervised the rescue operations. “We have information of rumours spreading of large number of casualties. People should avoid spreading rumours. Besides, people need not panic. Some TV channels are unduly spreading wrong messages which should be avoided,” the IG told Express. Being a prohibited area, photography was banned. Residents living even 10 kms away claimed to have heard the blast. Some said that the glass panes in their houses had broken.
Situated at an altitude of 1890 meters above sea level, it was the first smokeless propellant factory in India.
It was opened on January 19, 1904.