16 dead in Army ammo depot fire

Tribune News Service

New Delhi/Mumbai, May 31

Sixteen persons, including two officers, Lt Col RS Pawar and Maj K Manoj, were killed in a massive fire that broke out at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon (Wardha) near Nagpur in Maharashtra at 1.30 am today. The fire led to multiple explosions.

Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said besides the two Army officers, an Army jawan and 13 civilian firefighters had died in the fire that started in a shed that held “highly sensitive ammunition." 

Two officers, nine Army jawans and six fire fighting personnel were hospitalised  even as the Army had rushed its own teams of medical specialists from Pune, the DGMO said. The depot stores artillery  ammunition, which is deadly. Small arms and mortars are also stored there.

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Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag rushed to Pulgaon for spot assessment of the damage caused by the explosions. Even as the fire at Pulgaon is under control, ‘cooling operations’ will continue till tomorrow.

Meanwhile, district officials in Maharashtra said more than 1,000 people living in villages in the vicinity of the ammunition depot had been evacuated. “The people will be allowed to return to their homes after the defence authorities complete the cooling operations,” a district official said. The military authorities anticipate secondary explosions. Reports said the ammunition stored here includes those for rifles used by Army personnel and missiles such as the BrahMos.

Parrikar was in Pune where residents of localities around another ammunition depot at Pimpri-Chinchwad were demanding that they be allowed to construct houses in part of the sanitised area around the facility.

In May last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General in its report titled ‘Ammunition Management in Army’ had pointed out the risks. It said “the depots were functioning with risk of fire accident as the fire fighting equipments were not held as per requirement/authorisation.

 “The movement of ammunition within various echelons in the Army suffered from inadequacies such as delays in issue of ammunition, non-accounting of ammunition by depots, transportation of ammunition by other than specified explosive vans”, it had said, adding that even banned ammunition was lying around in the depots.