Crisis management mechanism was a complete disaster.

THE raging fire at the Indian Oil Corporation ( IOC) depot in Jaipur is a story of disastrous disaster management.

Questions have also been raised vis- Eavis the IOC's safety mechanisms. There were allegations that a leak that had occurred an hour before the fire broke out on Thursday night could not be stopped. The lack of effort on the part of the state disaster management department and the National Disaster Management Division ( NDMD) was also glaring.

State disaster management secretary Tanmaya Kumar claimed the full fledged department of disaster management has a very limited role to play in an emergency situation. " The primary role was that of the IOC, which was supposed to have both on- site and off- site plans to meet the crisis," he said.

" Our role remained supplementary. It was to co- ordinate action and information from various agencies and departments.

We met the requirements of various agencies like the medical department, police and fire fighters which were directly involved," he said.

NDMD officials also sought to justify their absence from the Jaipur fire site, saying they can intervene only in case of natural calamities. " The Jaipur fire was not a natural calamity. Our mandate does not allow us to intervene," an NDMD official said.

The first ' visible' effort to control the fire was made only on Day Three with the army digging a trench four feet wide and six feet deep around the depot compound. An army officer said trenches eight km in length were dug around the perimeter of the burning complex with JCB cranes.

The fire had died out in four of the 11 storage tanks by Saturday evening. The height of the fire was also ebbing in the seven tanks still ablaze as more fuel in the storage tanks got used up. But with as much as 30 per cent of the total fuel still left to be burnt on Saturday evening, the risk was that continuous burning could melt the steel the tanks were made of.

" The temperature inside the storage tanks is in excess of 1,600 degree Celsius.

The purpose of the trench is to control further damage in case there is a spill," Brigadier MDS Mann of the South West Command said.

An on- site official said an attempt made to douse the fire with foam on Friday backfired as the flames leapt even higher. The use of helicopters was also ruled out since they could further fan the fire, he added.

Oil- rich countries have developed techniques to take out oilfield fires larger than that raging in Jaipur in quick time. Methods like capping the burning fire to exhaust the oxygen supply are known to be successful. The oxygen supply is also often exhausted by using explosives.

However, the presence of two other oil facilities in close proximity to the IOC depot, and the fact that there are residential areas in the vicinity, ruled out many options. To have not one but three oil storage facilities run by three different companies in the same area proved to be a strategic disaster. The storage facility of Hindustan Petrochemicals Limited ( HPCL) is just 800 metres from the IOC compound. Scores of factories also litter the Sitapura Industrial Area.

An Oil Industries Safety Directorate officer said the fire broke out because of valve leakage during the pipeline transfer followed by a vapour cloud explosion. The deputy chief controller of explosives, D. J. Roy, who conducted preliminary investigations, said the oil spilled came in contact with a source of fire, triggering the massive inferno.

Official sources said the IOC depot had a licence issued by the controller of explosives valid till December 2010.

There will, however, be a safety audit after the fire is extinguished.

With inputs from Sudhanshu Mishra

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