Aluva, August 26: Four persons were killed and three others injured after an explosion rocked the 2,000 square feet concrete tank of a bio gas plant at nearby Edathala today.
While two bodies were recovered soon after the explosion, police and fire force personnel had a tough time to retrieve the two other bodies. Three of the injured had been admitted to various hospitals here.
Rural SP, T Vikram, told PTI that seven workers were engaged in rectifying a pipeline connected to the tank when there was a spark, causing the explosion. Some ‘mishandling’ could have caused the spark, though the exact reason is not yet known, he said.
The plant had not yet been commissioned, but trial run was on for the past one week.
Four excavators were used to dig up huge pits to empty the contents of the tank. The search for survivors went on past midnight and the fourth body was recovered at around 11.30 PM police added.
Some concrete slabs were removed from the bottom of the tank to ascertain whether any more bodies were there.
The plant authorities were planning to use waste generated in the entire Aluva Municipality and adjacent panchayats.
However, they had not yet received the panchayat licence for the plant, which had been set up near Al Ameen Arabic College campus.
The deceased were Ibrahim, an engineer contractor hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Safan Giri (30) from West Bengal, and Lalu (42) from nearby Edathala. Another deceased, also from West Bengal, has not been identified, police added.
—Agencies