Fire at sea destroys Mumbai High platform

However, Coast Guard and naval ships had, in a remarkably swift rescue operation carried out in extremely bad weather, rescued over 300 people by night.

The fire broke out around 4.30 p.m when, according to sources, a multi-purpose support vessel, MV Sagar Suraksha, hit the ‘riser’ — which stores and facilitates pumping of the raw crude from satellite wells to the platform — at Mumbai High North (MHN) during high tide, causing an explosion.

The vessel too was on fire, but two other nearby platforms — MHN Alfa and MHN Foxtrot — were saved because the connecting bridges collapsed.

About 150 of the ONGC employees had managed to move to a nearby water injection platform, MNW, quite early and were the first ones to be saved.

The rescue operations by the Coast Guard and Pawan Hans choppers were affected by the bad weather and waterlogging at various places. One Coast Guard vessel had reached the site and another was on its way tonight. Four Pawan Hans choppers were already operational though at its helibase at Juhu, 12 choppers remained grounded because of water.

But by late evening, more than 1,000 naval officers scrambled to help the stranded people. Capt Abhay Lambhate, Chief PRO of the Ministry of Defence said at least six Navy and Coast Guard ships have been sent to the accident site for search-and-rescue operations.

The Navy was not leaving anything to chance. ‘‘A naval commando Sea King chopper — which just finished a rescue operation in Kalina and Badlapur — has been sent to site to drop life rafts,’’ said Capt Lambhate. ‘‘In addition, a Dornier aircraft has also been sent,’’ he added. The life rafts open up as soon they hit the water.

Since the ONGC’s control room at Vasundhara had got flooded, it tried to set up one first at Nava and then at Trombay and later Uran but without any success. So, it set up a control room at the Bengal Chemicals office. The severe rain had badly affected the communication links.

‘‘We have had a major accident. We don’t have much details as of now…We are assessing the damage,’’ said ONGC Chairman-cum-Managing Director Subir Raha. ‘‘Production will certainly get affected.’’

An ONGC official ruled out an oil spill. Subir Raha is likely to visit Mumbai early tomorrow along with Aiyer. A senior ONGC official is flying to Mumbai tonight.