Visakhapatnam: Mild tension prevails as thick smoke gushes out of HPCL

Visakhapatnam: Thick smoke emanated from the crude distillation unit of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) Visakh Refinery on Thursday.

Mild tension prevailed at the refinery area as those residing at Malkapuram and Sriharipuram areas fled the place seeing the quantity of smoke gushing out of the stack.

With the gas leak incident at LG Polymers still fresh in their minds, some of them became alert as soon as they saw the fumes coming out of the stack.

However, the technical snag at one of the stacks at the refinery was brought to control within few minutes.

Meanwhile, those residing at Ram Nagar, Srinivas Nagar, Kodipandala Dibba and Sriharipuram left their houses for safety.

According to the HPCL CGM-HR Narisetty Rajarao, the emission is normal flue gas with steam and it was controlled within five minutes.

Further, he stated that the smoke was caused due to momentary imbalance in combustion leading to excess smoke emanating from the stack.