THE Union Petroleum Minister, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, did not miss the irony of it all. By Thursday evening, a series of events triggered by `Samudra Suraksha’ - a multi-support vessel (MSV) bearing the very name of protection - had killed 10 persons on or near the Bombay High North (BHN) process platform and sunk the installation. It was the most serious accident in the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation history.
Around noon, survivors from BHN began reaching the Victoria Docks. With medical attention already provided at site, the arrivals appeared polarised into two categories - those wanting to go home and the deceased. The survivors were barefooted and dressed in oil-stained orange overalls; an occasional mass of bandage or cream over burns, but mostly tired faces. As some hugged their colleagues and others wept from sheer shock, Mr Manohar Kaoshe, a piping engineer on BHN and Mr Binu George, contracted for electrical work on the platform, spoke about their experience.
Mr Koashe, who during his return trip jotted down the sequence of events in a small diary, said that the entire platform shook when the Samudra Suraksha collided with BHN. It sheared an oil line and explosions began from the lower reaches of the offshore structure. The broken oil line, he said, had been responsible for the spillage at site. Response time was very limited and soon the platform started collapsing. Mr Koashe escaped from the fire in a lifeboat carrying 50 people.
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