A.P. pharma unit blast: officials find key design faults in plant

After three days of minute inspection and parleys with the company management and the officials concerned, experts have come to the opinion that a few key design faults might have resulted in the explosion at Escientia Advanced Sciences Private Ltd. in the Special Economic Zone at Atchutapuram in Anakapalli district of Andhra Pradesh on August 21 that left 17 workers dead and about 35 injured. But by that time about 150 litres of MTBE had leaked and the vapour cloud spread to the ground floor and came into contact with the electric switch panel. So, instead of ‘one-way’ pass, the AHU were rather recycling the MTBE vapour clouds and not letting it dissipate in the atmosphere outside the closed building,” he said. But the casualties were only about seven, as it was an open building and the vapour cloud could dissipate over a larger area and the impact inside the building was at a lower scale.” Quality of reactors Mr. Pratap, who had drafted a gazette notification in 2022 on what steps to be initiated to control such accidents, when he was the DG of Fire Services, which was annulled by the earlier YSRCP government, said that in pharmaceutical and chemical factories, reactors played the most critical and crucial role.