In an incident at about 0615 hr, a chemist and two helpers received 85% burns during the cleaning of a dryer unit in a pharma firm that makes bulk drugs. A worker of the factory said that such incident never took place in the dryers of the pharma units in the industrial area.
A fire resulting after the explosion spread quickly due to chemicals and solvents in the area. The reason could for the incident could not be ascertained.
As it happened during dryer cleaning, the reason could be the static electricity and dust explosion. As solvents in the area caught fire, it is presumed that the workers might have used some solvent to clean the dryer. It is likely that the static electricity produced during cleaning might have discharged in the form of a spark. The dryer unit might have lot of loose particles in the form of dust and any disturbance during cleaning might have caused the dust airborne and to catch fire from the discharge of static electricity leading to dust explosion. Or, if they used large quanity of solvent inside the dryer, the vapors also might have caught fire leading to explosion in the confined space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIqbwSmd_LY
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-11-28/news/30450554_1_blast-three-persons-facility
A report on explosion in West Pharmaceutical Services can be read here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Pharmaceutical_Services_explosion
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