Four people have sustained burn injuries while four others went missing in an oil tanker explosion in Jhalakathi.
The incident took place when the oil tanker, Sagor Nandini-II, was unloading the fuel at the Padma oil depot around 2:10pm on Saturday in the Sugandha River, Jhalakathi Sadar Circle Additional Superintendent of Police Mahidul Islam confirmed.
However, the police officer could not initially tell what exactly caused the explosion.
There were nine crew members on board including the master. Of them, four people were rescued with injuries.
The injured have been identified as Shakil, 35, Faridul Alam, 53, Iqbal Hossen, 27, and Mainul Islam Hridoy, 29.
Of them, two have been sent to Barisal Sher-e Bangla Medical College Hospital for better treatment and two others admitted to Jhalakathi Sadar Hospital.
One of the crew members named Belayet, 45, jumped into the river and reached the shore unharmed. The rest of the four crew members are still missing.
Jhalakathi Superintendent of Police Afruzul Haque Tutul said that four people were injured in the oil tanker fire. The fire service and the police are working to find the other four missing crews.
The oil tanker was ferrying 1.1 million litre of petrol and diesel from Chittagong to the Padma Oil Depot in Jhalakathi, said depot Supervisor Hossain Ahmed.
The vessel was scheduled to unload oil on Saturday afternoon. However, a sudden explosion took place in the engine room at 2pm and the oil tanker caught fire.
The explosion collapsed the master bridge and the ship was slowly sinking till the filing of this report at 6pm.
Five units of fire service teams from Jhalakathi and Barisaal stations rushed to the spot and brought the fire under control in about an hour.
On November 12, 2021, seven people were killed in a fire of the same company's ship OT Sagor Nandini-3 in Jhalakathi.
