Gas inside old borewell catches fire in Sivakodu, Konaseema

Konaseema: Panic ensued after a gas leak from an old borewell triggered a fire at Sivakodu village, Razole mandal, in Konaseema district on Saturday morning.

At the time of filing this report, the police, fire service and ONGC officials were working on extinguishing the fire from the borewell, located on the bank of a fish pond. The fire, which was coming out in a rapid jet from the old borewell, was fortunately not close to any residential areas.

The officials claimed that the fire might have started when an aquaculturist turned on the water supply attached to it after a long time. “It is an old borewell on the bank of a fish pond. When the farmer turned it on, first came water followed by gas,” Konaseema district superintendent of police P Sridhar said.

Police are checking if the farmer had dug up the bank recently and are also trying to find the source of the gas. The first priority, however, is to extinguish the fire, Sridhar said and added that it can be achieved in a couple of hours.

Officials said that as the borewell was dug 300 feet depth, there might be chances of hitting the gas/oil patches which caused the leak.

An ONGC team from Rustumbada village near Narsapur in West Godavari district is also working on putting out the fire.

Sridhar said that there were no ONGC pipelines in the vicinity of the pond but said that a ‘gas kick’ (the unexpected entry of gas into a bore well by a change in pressure, usually during drilling) might be a possible reason for the fire.

This is a developing copy.

Inputs from PTI