Thane: Blast in chemical factory leaves Dombivli residents traumatised

Mahesh Patel will never forget the sight he witnessed while making tea yesterday The Dombivli resident saw the window grills of his home bend and mistook the sight for a bomb blast before realising that it happened because of multiple explosions that occurred at a chemical factory in the suburbs MIDC Phase II areaAround 15 fire engines and 10 water tankers were pressed into service at the spot PicsSatej ShindeAt 1145 am nearly four blasts shook the area They killed five and injured 129 of which 9 are seriously injured Sixtynine have been admitted in the hospital while the rest are taking first aid The explosions also brought almost 1000 residents on the streets as their homes were badly affected by the impactAccording to senior police officials the blasts were a result of a chemical reaction gone wrongThe incident occurred in the chemical factory of Probace Enterprises and later spread to another factory as wellAn intensive search of the debris was carried out to find the people trapped inside Till the time of going to press Suresh Shinde Chief Fire Officer of Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation said three people were still missing and the search was on for themAround 15 fire engines and 10 water tankers were at the spot Shinde said ldquoThe fire was doused at 3 pm Our officials were at the spot till the evening as the fire kept rising from time to time We are still trying to control the firerdquoThe blast was so huge that its impact was felt even in a radius of two and half kilometers from the site of origin Some residents said they felt as if an earthquake was coming on and rushed outside their homesPatel a resident of Puspam Villa which is 50meters from the blast site said ldquoI was preparing tea and all of a sudden I heard a huge blast The window grills in front of me were bent and the plasters came down from the ceiling At first I thought it was a bomb blast and we all started leaving the building Later on we learnt about the blast at the factoryrdquoJt Commissioner saysAshutosh Dhumbre joint commissioner of police Thane said ldquoWe have registered a case against the owners of Probace Enterprises for causing death due to negligence and other different sections of the Indian Penal Code It has been registered on a primary basis and we will further add the names of the supervisor and others who were negligent as wellrdquoAccording to locals nearly 100 buildings with almost 1000 residents and many commercial outlets were affected because of the blastThe residents are staying in open spaces close to their homes and various organisations are offering them food Meanwhile cops say all the injured and deceased were moved to ICON AIMS Shivam Neptune and Shashtri Nagar hospitals The dead bodies were then shifted to Rukmini Bai hospital in KalyanFactory owners missingNandan Wakhatkar 32 Sumit Wakhatkar 30 and Snehal Wakhatkar 28 who are the owners of the Probace Enterprises were missing till the time of going to the pressShinde said ldquoThe three people are the owner of the firm and are missing We found that they were present in the chemical factory during the time of the incident We suspect they would be under the debris and search operation is on as their relatives claimed they were not found in the hospitalsrdquoHe added ldquoIn the evening we received information that they are in the hospital but they are yet to be confirmed by identificationrdquoMPCB Not under our purviewA senior official from MPCB said ldquoWe cannot comment much into the issue as this matter is related to Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health DISH The explosion had taken place in the chemical factory located at Dombivali MIDC due to some chemical reaction The subject comes under the purview of DISH as they will do panchanama and are investigation into the issuerdquoMIDC Helped control situationRV Sonje Chief Engineer MIDC Dombivali said ldquoThe checking of various permissions and inspections comes under the purview of DISH and they are investigating the issue We have a fire station at Dombivali MIDC and immediately after the incident we helped control the situation in the best possible wayrdquoDISH Will inspect other factoriesSP Kulkarni joint director of the Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health DISH of he Maharashtra Labour Department said ldquoWe inspect various chemical factories on a regular basis and it was done in this case as well We would also be carrying out inspection of other chemical factories in Dombivalirdquo