At least four people have been injured with one critically in the sequel of the massive fire that broke out from one of the chemical plants in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh on the night hours of Monday, leaving the residents to witness third such shocking incident in the district in two months. 

According to the reports close to the developments, the fire has broke out following a massive explosion at one of the reactors of the Visakha Solvents Ltd, which sits on Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City in the outskirts of Visakhapatnam on Monday night around 10.30 pm. Although the cause of the explosion is yet to be ascertained, the four workers, who were at the unit when the explosion occurred, have been injured. 

Of these four workers, one employee, Malleshwar Rao, who is the chemist of the unit has sustained severe burn injuries and he has been admitted at RK Hospital in Gajuvaka and the team of 12 fire workers were deployed to the spot following the emergence of the mass smoke and explosion to contain the flames.

The response team took nearly four hours to bring the situation under control. The reports say the massive explosion was heard by people who are living 15 km away from the plant and some residents said that they heard the sounds of over dozens of explosions and the thick smoke from the plant had occupied the air for over several kilometers. The pharma city houses many pharmaceutical companies and sudden mishap and explosion had made the employees of other companies to immediately exit their premises and rush for safety.

A huge explosion took place at Vizag's Paravada in #Visakhapatnam Ramky Pharma City at around 11PM (Monday). Locals say they have heard repeated explosions & the flames are seen from 2 to 3 kms far.
Explosion took place in #VisakhaSolventsLimited in Pharma City.#VizagBlast pic.twitter.com/wjuz6NP7bq

— Shivani Sharma (@Shivani2297) July 14, 2020

According to the reports, the pharma city in Visakhapatnam has 85 pharmaceutical companies and the fire did not spread to other units. Some reports stated that, apart from four, one more employee went missing after the mishap and the city's police department has been searching for the missing employee. The deployed Fire and Emergency Services battled the flames and brought under control by 6 am on Tuesday.

Visakhapatnam Collector Vinay Chand said that the preliminary investigations have said that there were five reactors in the plant and one of them had got exploded on Monday and soon after the development, the teams were deployed and necessary efforts were made to contain the fire. 

Visakha Solvents Ltd has been engaged in recovering the waste solvents from the pharmaceutical units. The Company's Chief Executive said that the fire could have broken out during the recovery process. 

This has been a third such mishap from chemical plants reported from Visakhapatnam since May of which two mishaps were reported in the pharma city. On May 7, the leakage of the gas from LG Polymers India Ltd had killed over twelve people and injured hundreds and the gas leakage from Sainor Life Sciences Pvt Ltd in the Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City on June 30 had killed two workers of the plant and injured four others.