Tinsukia (Assam): Fire continued to rage at the gas well of Oil India Limited at Baghjan in Tinsukia district on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Thursday reviewed the situation arising out of gas well blowout and fire in the oil well number Baghjan-5 in Assam's Tinsukia district and assured the people of the state that the government is fully committed to providing support and relief to the affected families.
The review meeting was attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, some other union ministers and senior officers.
During the review meeting, it was informed that the detailed plan has been drawn with the help of Indian and foreign experts to control the flow of gas from the well and to cap it.
At 10:30 AM on May 27, well number 5 in Baghjan locality near eastern Assam’s Tinsukia town started to leak gas during ‘workover’ operations carried out by a Gujarat-based oilfield services company M/s John Energy. And from Saturday, the cold and humid weather became hot and dry. The gas leak caught a spark and a catastrophic fire started razing everything it faced to ashes.
Also read: Assam oil well fire: Steps taken to ensure environmental balance
Set up in 1987, John Energy operates in about 2,500 oil wells. The company set up a new vertical of natural gas dehydration in June 2014 after the gas leakage in GAIL’s KG-Basin pipeline in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.
OIL, a state-owned PSU with its headquarters in Noida and operational headquarters in Duliajan in eastern Assam, zeroed on three foreign firms as India does not have any specialist firms for such emergencies.Of the three firms—‘Boots and Coots’, ‘Wild Well’ and the Singapore-based ‘Alert Disaster Control’, the last one was selected.
Following the well blowout on May 27, OIL said over 1,610 families were moved out of the area and provided shelter at four relief camps, where following the guidelines to check the spread of the coronavirus, including maintaining social distancing, are proving to be a major challenge and a number of houses, vehicles, small gardens and some forest areas burnt to ashes.
Also read: Army to build bridge to help douse Assam oil well fire
In 2005, a similar incident had taken place in Assam’s Dikom and it had taken the authorities about 45 days to control the blaze.
(ANI)
