At least six persons were killed and 10 others injured when a massive explosion rocked the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD) at Pulgaon in Wardha district of eastern Maharashtra on Tuesday morning.
The explosion took place between 7-7:15 am at Sonegaon destruction area near the CAD-Pulgaon, when staffers of the Ordnance Factory Khamaria (OFK) from Jabalpur, were disposing off non-serviceable ammunition.
Official sources that the explosion took place when the OFK staffers, along with the hired casual labourers, were disposing of vintage shells of 23 mm Schilka air defence ammunition.
The exercise to dispose of the expired ammunition began on November 19 and is scheduled to continue till December 8.
Spread over 9,000 hectare area, the CAD-Pulgaon is considered one of the biggest ammunition depots in Asia. A wide range of ammunition ranging from bullets to shells and rockets to missiles are stored here.
Those killed in the mishap comprised one employee of OFK and five casual workers hired by the authorised contractor for digging the pits and placing sand bags on the explosives.
Ten others injured in the mishap were rushed to a Government Hospital at Sawangi in Wardha district, where the condition of four was described as “critical”.
Th deceased were identified as one Udayvir Singh from OFK, Rajkumar Bahute (23) Prabhakar Ramdas Wankhede (32), Pravin Prakash Munjewar (25), Vilas Lakshmanrao Pachare (36), and Narayan Pachare (48), all of whom were casual labourers.
Incidentally, OFK employee killed in the mishap Udayvir Singh was had experience to handle such ammunition disposals.
"One of the boxes containing ammunition blew up all of a sudden, while the workers were unloading the consignment of unusable ammunition for disposal. The incident took place in an open land," Wardha district’s Additional Superintendent of Police Nikhil Pingle said.
Nagpur-based defence spokesperson Group Captain Basantkumar B Pande said that teams of officials from Ordnance Factory Chandrapur and Ordnance Factory Khamaria had rushed to the site to ascertain cause of accident.
"Pending an inquiry into the cause of mishap, we have registered a case of accidental death. A thorough inquiry will be conducted and legal action will be initiated accordingly," said Inspector General of Police (Nagpur Range) KMM Prasanna said.
Meanwhile, the General Manager of the Ordnance Factory, Khamaria has ordered an inquiry into the case of the mishap.
Tuesday’s was the major explosion that took place at Pulgaon CAD. Earlier on May 31, 2016, 19 persons including a Lieutenant Colonel and a Major had been killed and 17 others injured after a series of explosions and resultant fire ripped through the CAD -Pulgaon.
At that time, the incident had taken place in one of the one of the sheds of the Pulgaon depot where anti-tank mines were stored. As much as 130 tonnes of material (anti-tank mines) blew up in the incident. Some of it was quite old and they were as good as discarded. What is more important is that 16 personnel sacrificed their lives to contain the explosions and the resultant fire to an area of 100 meters of CAD.