Two dead, four injured in pharma unit fire near Visakhapatnam

Two workers died and four others received burn injuries following a fire accident at one of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) units at Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City (JNPC) at Parawada, about 50 km from here on Tuesday.

The incident took place at Azico Biophore when cleaning operation was under progress with a solvent to prepare a new product, Joint Inspector of Factories D. Chandrasekhar Varma told to Media.

The injured were admitted to two hospitals in the city. “The fire was put out immediately after it was noticed preventing its spread to raw material storage area,” JNPC CEO Lal Krishna said.

The exact reason for the incident was not known immediately. Fire tenders of Ramky, which developed JNPC under PPP project, were immediately deployed to extinguish the blaze.

The Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board had suspended the licence of Azico Biophore and four other units at JNPC in October, 2016 for not adhering to norms on waste disposal. After ensuring compliance of norms, the order was revoked a few months later, sources in the board said.