M A I N   N E W S

4 sailors die in ship fire

Visakhapatnam, February 23
Four sailors were killed and 19 injured, four of them seriously, in a fire accident on board INS Magar, a landing ship tanker belonging to the Eastern Naval Command (ENC), 39 nautical miles southeast of Visakhapatnam coast, last evening.

The ship had set sail from the ENC base yesterday afternoon and the mishap occurred three hours later. A Board of Enquiry has been ordered into the incident.

According to ENC sources, the fire occurred when sailors were handling ammunition boxes in the ship. They received severe chemical burns as a result of the accident.

While three of them died on the spot, the fourth victim, also a sailor, died in INHS Kalyani, the naval hospital where the injured were admitted, this evening.

Admiral Superintendent of Naval Dockyard Rear Admiral Dilip Deshpande said: “There might not be much damage to the ship otherwise it could not have sailed back to the naval base smoothly. We have to look into the incident to assess the damage to the ship.”

Commanding-in-Chief of Eastern Naval Command Vice-Admiral Suresh Mehta was not available for comments. — UNI