Yet another tragedy struck the Indian Navy on Friday when a warship under construction suffered a lethal gas leak killing an officer onboard at Mumbai Port Trust. The construction work of the vessel was being handled by Mazgaon Dock limited (MDl) in Mumbai. Some employees of MDl were also injured. Initial reports said that the accident took place due to malfunctioning in the “Kolkata class” destroyer’s carbon dioxide unit leading to the gas leakage.
This accident came within a week of Sindhuratna mishap that claimed the lives of two officers. This is the 12th such tragedy to hit the Indian Navy in just seven months.
The Friday’s mishap took place around 12.45 pm when the destroyer named Yard-701, which was to be commissioned within weeks, was undergoing machinery trials at Mumbai Port Trust.
Commander (engineering) Kuntal Wadhva, 42, died in the accident while Aslam Gafar Kazi, 51, a worker of MDl suffered suffocation and was admitted to Prince Ali Hospital, Mazgaon. The Navy and MDl have instituted two separate enquiries to find out the cause of mishap.
While preliminary reports said Wadhwa died after inhaling gas, unconfirmed reports indicated that he fell down and died while escaping after detecting the gas leak during the emergency response drill of the machinery system.
Additional Commissioner of Police Krishna Prakash said Wadhvaa was declared dead before admission into St George Hospital at 1.17 pm. He added that around 12.45 pm during fire fighting testing, the CO2 bottleneck opened accidentally, releasing the gas.
Denying reports of explosions, officials said trials of the warship were on for the last few days at various docks of Mumbai Port Trust and Naval Dockyard. They said a particular system within the ship was damaged in the incident and engineers will assess the degree of damage.
The 6,700-tonne destroyer was under construction for the last four years and was scheduled to be inducted shortly. The accident may delay commissioning by some weeks, officials said.
The Kolkata class warship is one of the most advanced vessels made in India and is fitted with state-of-the art sensors and weaponry. The Navy had planned to induct two more destroyers namely Kochi and Chennai of this class. These warships are part of Project-15 A, and all the three ships are under construction at MDl.
Destroyers are the third biggest class of warships after aircraft carriers and landing platform docks (lPD). In terms of operational role, destroyers have more firepower as compared to aircraft carriers and are meant to neutralise enemy ships and selected targets on land. At present, the Navy has three destroyers of Delhi Class namely Delhi, Mumbai and Mysore and all of them were built by MDl.
Admiral DK Joshi resigned as Naval chief owning moral responsibility when a fire broke out onboard Sindhuratna on February 26 killing two officers.
Another serious accident in submarine INS Sindhurakshak on August 14 last year at Mumbai harbour killed all 18 personnel. The Government recently awarded a contract to a US-based salvage company to bring out the submerged vessel to enable experts to ascertain cause of explosion. The salvage process is expected to begin within a few weeks.
INS Airavat, an amphibious warfare vessel, ran aground last month and the commanding officer was taken off of his command duties. Another ship INS Betwa was damaged when its sonar dome hit some underwater object. India’s leading minesweeper, INS Konkan undergoing repairs in Vizag, caught fire and suffered major damage to its interiors. The Pondicherry-class minesweeper was undergoing refit at a dry dock when the incident occurred.
Incidentally, the accident onboard the destroyer comes a day after Finance Minister P Chidambaram suggested that the Defence Ministry was not spending funds allocated to it “wisely” enough and that it should learn lessons from these incidents. He made these remarks at a National Students Union of India (NSUI) function when asked about the spate of recent mishaps.
Urging the defence forces to “learn a lesson and make sure that money allocated to them is spent wisely and more efficiently on essential matters,” Chidambaram said it was not correct to say that enough funds were not provided.
“There is no such thing as enough. Our requirements are so large. We require money for defence, MNREGS, old age pension, scholarships, paying wages. It is a question of allocating money. And for defence, we have provided the maximum amount that we can afford and a little more,” he said.