CN Rao, an ONGC general manager sacrificed his life to save his colleagues, near Mumbai

At around 7:15 am, September 3, when a massive fire broke out at the ONGC’s Oil and Gas processing plant in Nagaon, Maharashtra, production superintendent CN Rao was checking the gas leaks. The officer sacrificed himself to save his colleagues and preclude a noteworthy disaster. Rao joined ONGC in 1990 and is being described as a helpful and dedicated officer.

While the exact reason behind the fire is yet to obscure, it is said that the underground storage tank containing highly flammable chemicals effluents overflowed and came in contact with the fire source.

Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) was informed in the morning about gas leakage near the LPG plant of ONGC. Three CISF personnel and CN Rao then rushed to the site and detected leakage. They managed to close the main gas pipeline valve and were observing if there was any other leakage, but there was a blast and all the three CISF personnel along with ONGC DGM lost their lives.

The CISF fire team continued with fire fighting and managed to control the blaze. Three other CISF fire personnel also suffered burn injuries and were hospitalised.

ONGC, through its official Twitter handle, tweeted that, “We are extremely sad to have lost four precious lives-three CISF jawans and a senior ONGC officer in the unfortunate fire incident in Uran Plant today in spite of valiant efforts made to contain the blaze in less than 2 hours time. ONGC expresses its heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families.” The efforts to normalise the situation are underway. However, the oil production was not impacted by the fire but ONGC diverted natural gas produced from fields in the Arabian Sea to a similar processing facility at Hazira in Gujarat.