By IANS
Bhubaneswar : The condition of four workers remained critical Sunday, a day after they received burn injuries due to a blast furnace explosion in a private steel plant in Orissa.
An engineer, four permanent workers and 19 contract labourers were injured when coke oven connected to the blast furnace suddenly ignited causing an explosion Saturday afternoon in the VISA Steel complex in Kalinga Nagar, the state’s steel hub located in Jajpur district, nearly 150 km from here.
“While six of them are in critical condition having above 60 percent burn injuries, the condition of the others with less than 40 percent injuries is improving,” an official of Sun Clinic, where they have been admitted, told IANS.
As the news of the accident and the injuries spread, an irate mob went berserk in the industrial complex, damaging properties worth over Rs.7 million.
“The mob ransacked the administrative building besides damaging three buses, three cars and a marshal vehicle of the plant. They also destroyed about 50 computers and tore up valuable documents and files,” said Jagat Parija, vice-president (corporate) of VISA Steel.
Three platoons of armed police forces remained deployed in the trouble-torn area.
“An FIR (first information report) has been lodged by company authorities with Jakhapura police station and a case has been registered accordingly. The Jajpur sub-divisional police officer is supervising the case. No one has been rounded up yet,” Jajpur District Superintendent of Police D.S. Kuttey said.
He added that the situation in the plant premises was absolutely normal.
VISA Steel, the flagship company of Rs.1.60 billion VISA Group, is currently setting up an integrated 1.5 million tonne per annum special and stainless steel plant at Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex.