A major blast occured at the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) refinery in Mahul around 2.45 pm yesterday, injuring 43 workers at the site. At the time of going to press, fire officials said the control burning operation was in process, and that unless the entire contents of the hydro-cracker unit were exhausted, the fire would continue to burn and firefighting would go on.

The incident took place in the boiler of the unit, which contained 72 tons of hydrocarbon, used for diesel generation in cracking vacuum gas oil and hydrocarbon unit. There were eight to 10 monitors of BPCL, mutual aid response group and fire brigade carrying out the operation from all sides. Along with this, seven fire engines, two fire tenders, seven jumbo water tankers, and ambulances too were pressed into service.