Five workers killed in fire at Serum Institute plant

Five workers killed in fire at Serum Institute plant

Covishield Unit Unaffected, ₹25L For Victim’s Kin

Asseem Shaikh & Umesh Isalkar TNN

Pune:22.01.2021

Five people died in a major fire that broke out at Serum Institute of India’s (SII) vaccine manufacturing plant at Manjari, near Hadapsar here, at around 2.30 pm on Thursday.

“Five charred bodies were found at the site. We are investigating the matter,” Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta told TOI.

Police said preliminary information revealed that the five victims were among the workers hired by a contractor for some civil work, including electrical and pipe fitting jobs, on the sixth and topmost floor of the facility. After the fire brigade put out the blaze, the contractor reported that some of his men were missing. Their bodies were found during a search.

Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope, who was updated by district collector Rajesh Deshmukh, told TOI, “Prima facie, welding work at the plant firing up installation material has been ascertained as the cause of the fire. I want to reiterate that the Covishield vaccine plant is far away from the site that caught fire. There are absolutely no losses of the Covid vaccine.”

SII fire: Co to give ₹25L compensation to victims’ families

Adar Poonawalla, owner and chief executive officer of SII, posted on his official Twitter handle: “We have just received some distressing updates; upon further investigation we have learnt that there has unfortunately been some loss of life at the incident. We are deeply saddened and offer our deepest condolences to the family members of the departed.”

Poonawalla later told TOI, “The rotavirus vaccine facility, where the fire broke out, was an additional manufacturing unit that got damaged in the blaze. Covishield production will not be affected as our plant has multiple manufacturing units.” Rotaviruses are the most common cause of diarrhoeal disease among infants and young children.

SII CMD Cyrus Poonawalla said in a statement: “Today (Thursday) is an extremely sorrowful day for all of us at SII. Regrettably, there were losses of lives in the fire that broke out in our under-installation facility situated at the special economic zone at Manjari.”

“We are deeply saddened and offer our condolences to the families of the departed. In this regard, we will be offering compensation of Rs 25 lakh to each of the (victim’s) family, in addition to the mandated amount as per norms. We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone for their concern and prayers in this distressing time,” he added.

Workers outside the SII building in Pune on Thursday