Death toll from India oil blaze 'hits 8': official

The fire, caused by a suspected oil pipeline leak, broke out Thursday night at the Indian Oil Corp (IOC) compound on the outskirts of Jaipur in the desert state of Rajasthan.

B.L. Soni, a senior Jaipur police official, told AFP three bodies had been pulled from the plant on Saturday morning.

“Now the death toll is eight and the number of injured is 130, with two critically injured.”

Two employees of the IOC were missing, he added.

Thick clouds of black smoke and orange flames continued to billow from the facility, but Soni said there was little firefighters could do but wait for the blaze to burn out.

“The intensity of fire is too much” for firefighters to extinguish the flames, he said.

IOC officials estimated the cost of the fire at up to 1.5 billion rupees (30 million U.S. dollars).

Emergency services evacuated between 1,000 and 1,500 people living within a two kilometer (1.2 mile) radius of the mostly industrial area, but some residents living farther away from the fire had started to return, said Soni.

The Press Trust of India reported that Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora has ordered a probe into the accident.

Local residents reported hearing a large explosion as the blaze broke out, engulfing about 50,000 kilolitres of fuel stored in tanks.

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