The probe report of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) said negligence of officials concerned and lack of fire safety measures were behind the fire at the depot of Jamuna Oil Company Limited in Chittagong city’s Patenga on February 28.
Assistant General Manager (Terminal) Abul Bashar was suspended after getting the probe report while Managing Director Alimuddin Ahmed and Deputy General Manager Md Manjur Rahman of Jamuna Oil Company Limited were asked to show cause over the incident.
Four officials of state-run Jamuna Oil Company Limited were blamed for their negligence while the probe report recommended replacing the officials from such important posts and taking departmental action against them.
SM Rejoan Hossain, chief of the five-member probe committee of BPC, also a director (marketing) of the corporation, submitted the 16-page probe report to BPC Chairman Md Eunusur Rahman yesterday morning a day later of its scheduled time, said BPC sources.
On February 28 evening, nine employees of the depot sustained burn injuries.
Of them, seven are undergoing treatment at the Burn and Plastic Surgery unit of Dhaka Medical College. Two separate probe bodies were formed on the following to investigate the incident.
The workers opened the lid of the blank tank, which was actually full of octane gas, and switched on the pump machine at a time. As the switching on and off of the pump create spark normally, the switch box needed to be fire proof but the switch box of the affected tank was not fire-proofed, said the report.
Besides, there was a little measure at the depot for firefighting, the report said, adding, it proved the irresponsibility of Engineer concerned Mushfiqur Rahman and Assistant General Manager (Terminal) Abul Bashar as they were not present on the spot during the maintenance work, said the probe report.
The report also said as they were informed about the risks, they were supposed to be present on the spot according to official system, but they had not done it, which was directly responsible for the incident.
Engineer Mushfiqur Rahman was suspended temporarily after the incident.
The report also blamed Managing Director Alimuddin Ahmed and Deputy General Manager Md Manjur Rahman of Jamuna Oil Company Limited as they did not discharge their duty properly.
The report also put six-point recommendations.
Of them, the prime and foremost one is to replace the irresponsible officials from such kind of important establishment and re-shuffle the posts with the deployment of capable and responsible officials into the sector.
Second one is to introduce separate and specialised firefighting unit for such depots with all kinds of modern amenities and vehicles.
Third one is to introduce training and practice sessions for the workers and employees of such establishments regularly to face such an incident that happened on February 28.
“Receiving all kinds of findings and the recommendations, the probe report was forwarded to Mojammel Haque Khan, secretary of the ministry for power, energy and mineral resources,” said the BPC chairman.
