IOC fire continues raging, death toll reaches 9

IOC fire Three more dead bodies were recovered from the burning Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) depot in south Jaipur on Saturday morning, taking the death toll to eight in the massive blaze that has been burning for almost two days.

Meanwhile, Army and Jaipur Municpal Corporation personnel are digging a ditch two feet deep and one foot wide around the depot premises in Sitapura Industrial Area. Superintendent of Police (Jaipur City East) Biju George Joseph said the channel would control the fire from spreading on the ground after it reached the bottom of the oil tanks.

The police said that the bodies, which were recovered on Saturday morning, were those of IOC employees. "Three dead bodies of IOC employees have been taken out of the campus," Biju George Joseph said.

One body, also of an IOC staffer, was recovered from the facility on Friday. The four were employed on contract with IOC. The company had said that six of its employees were missing in the blaze that broke out on Thursday evening.

After the massive damage due to the fire to the factories, educational institutions and residentail areas in the vicinity of the depot, pegged at about Rs 500 crore, the state government has announced that it is mulling to shift the oil depot about 35 km out of Jaipur. Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal said on Friday that the depot would be shifted but the government is yet to work out the modalities.

Five oil tanks at the IOC depot, of the total 11, are still burning thought the intensity of the flames has lowered, according to the fire department officials. The officials said that it would take another
10 hours for the intensity to lower and then operations to extinguish the flames would be started.

Chief Fire Officer Ishwar Lal Jat said, "We will try to control the flames by spreading foam compounds."