Mangaluru: District admin holds Mock-drill at BASF chemical plant to bolster safety

Bellevision Media Network

Mangaluru, 22 Mar 2021: The regular workmen who were working on Saturday, March 21 at BASF chemical plant observed rise in temperature within a few hours of working. They rushed to fetch water hoses and began to sprinkle water, but they found hoses in 2 chemical plants were not operational.

 

A short while later, sirens went off alerting the workmen of mishap. The workmen worried over the emergency situation when they noticed a fellow workman fell ill. The medical team rushed to the spot, the sick man was put on oxygen and ferried to hospital in an ambulance.

 

BASF officials informed the district administration who sprang into action alerting the locals not to move on the access road to BASF.

 

 

The district administration ordered NDRF to move their team at the earliest to BASF, while it monitored the situation at real time in touch with the control room at the chemical plant.

 

The chemical fumes contaminated the atmosphere nearby BASF in the vicinity of Tokoor village. NDRF, medical and home guards teams rescued 25 men who fell sick and providing oxygen rushed them to hospital in an ambulance. A few of them with mild symptoms were taken to nearby Mahalingeshwara School.

 

NDRF and police visited nearby houses to check the extent of chemical leakage, those who needed first aid were taken to emergency medical camps where they were treated.

 

The traffic police withheld the traffic on access road to chemical plant at Tokoor that reported leakage allowing movement of ambulance ferrying the victims of chemical leakage to the hospital.

 

These are the scenes found at the mock drill held at BASF chemical plant on Saturday, March 29. It was held in collaboration with district administration and NDRF.

 

Later, the plant officials sought the locals’ for info on inconveniences caused by mock drill.

 

About 250 personnel from NDRF, CISF, BASF, home guards, police, fire brigade partaken in this mock drill.

 

The factories and boilers deputy director Rajesh Mishri Koti said, ‘It’s our duty to create awareness on safety of locals when a tragedy like chemical leakage occurs.’

 

The mock drill shed light on what should be done by locals, fire brigade, police and medical team if in case of a chemical leakage from 2 plants of BASF.

 

The people living nearby the chemical plant and men working at the plant are likely to face breathing difficulty if in case of leakage and also cause harm to eyes and skin. The mock drill has achieved these set objectives for positive response from all stakeholders.    

 

It’s significant that all the latest safety apparatus were used by the NDRF to get prepared for the worst tragedy.

 

NIT-K professor and district disaster management member Sriniketan, said that the objective of mock drill aimed at preparing the personnel of fire brigade, police and other departments to counter the situation since the NDRF team headquartered at Bengaluru would take a little longer to arrive at the spot, he said.

 

The district disaster management expert Vijayakumar, regional fire brigade chief Vasant Kumar, home guards deputy Commandant Ramesh, BASF staff and other government department officials were present.