The death toll in Monday’s devastating blast at the steel smelting shop of the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, also known as the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, rose to nine, after another worker died on Wednesday, even as the three-member expert committee appointed by the Union Ministry of Steel began investigating the cause of the accident, officials said.
Contract worker K Bedi Raju succumbed to serious injuries at Seven Hills Hospitals at 8.17 am, Visakhapatnam District Joint Collector G Vidyadhari told reporters. She added: “He was one of two workers among the six injured who suffered 90 percent burns.”
The joint official added that the body was taken to King George Hospital in the coastal city for an autopsy, and was later handed over to her family members.
Meanwhile, a three-member expert committee headed by Priya Ranjan, director-in-charge of Bokaro Steel Plant, and including Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) director general Jitendra Kumar and retired SAIL director general Gopal Singh, visited the accident site for the second consecutive day on Wednesday.
A senior official familiar with the matter said that the preliminary investigation conducted by the expert committee revealed that the explosion in the ladle may have been caused by the sudden release of gases trapped inside the molten steel.
“At the time of the accident, a crane was rotating a ladle filled with molten steel as part of the billet production process. Experts suspect that moments before the sliding gate at the bottom of the ladle opened to release the molten steel, the gases trapped inside were exposed to intense pressure, causing a powerful explosion,” the official said.
In the steelmaking process, pig iron is smelted at temperatures ranging from 1540 to 1630 degrees Celsius. To turn molten iron into steel, oxygen is injected under high pressure. Oxygen reacts with impurities such as carbon, manganese and silicon, converting them into slag and gases. He added that some of these gases remain trapped inside the molten metal, and may have been released suddenly.
According to the preliminary assessment by RINL authorities, the incident at Steel Melt Shop-1 (SMS-1) may have caused losses exceeding $120 crore, including damage to machinery and equipment alone, besides stopping steel production.
“The workers are so terrified that they are refusing to join the service even after two days due to safety concerns. Senior officials at RINL tried to convince the employees to join the service, but they remained outside the unit,” the officials said.
The Continuous Casting Department (CCD) of SMS-1 has six machines, five of which are operating normally. During the afternoon of Monday, machines Nos. 2, 3 and 4 were in operation. The explosion occurred near Machine 2 at approximately 4:30 p.m., causing extensive damage to cables and other equipment throughout the department.
The CCD closure also began to impact operations in other sections of the steel plant, disrupting the overall production process.
D Adinarayana, chief employee and president of INTUC, said employees were regularly warning the RINL management about the lack of safety measures at the steel plant and the possibility of accidents.
“Also in December, the trade unions wrote a letter to the district and state labor authorities, apprising them of the serious safety lapses, environmental risks and public health risks prevailing at the factory,” he said.
The unions warned in the letter that if the situation is not addressed immediately, it could lead to a large-scale industrial disaster at the steel plant. The unions cited non-implementation of safety guidelines, regular violation of standard operating procedures, maintenance procedures and hazard identification and risk assessment protocols.
“We have also highlighted the massive reduction of manpower through VRS, with no replacement recruitment, illegal retrenchment of contract workers, reduction of essential maintenance force, arbitrary transfer of highly experienced personnel without consultation or training, extreme mental stress and fatigue due to burnout,” Adinarayana said.
On Wednesday, YSR Congress leader and former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy visited the accident site at the factory and also visited the injured. He demanded a tip $1 crore over and above what is owed, plus a job for the relatives of the deceased in the steel plant accident.
Jagan also asked the state assembly to pass a resolution opposing the privatization of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. “The government is proud of $Rs 11,440-crore package for the steel plant, but the amount is not aimed at improving safety standards or employee welfare. Instead, this measure aims to reduce the number of employees through VRS, settlement of bank dues, and other similar measures.
