Ahemdabad, January 6
Three persons were killed and at least three reported missing in the devastating fire that broke out at the Indian Oil Corporation’s petrol storage tanker at Hazira, near Surat, in south Gujarat, on Saturday.

The fire that broke out around 11 am on Saturday was contained after over 80 fire tenders, summoned from as far as from Ahmedabad, battled for over 25 hours. Some 27 kilolitres of petrol worth Rs 35 crore was destroyed in the blaze.

Union Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily visited Hazira this morning to supervise the operations.

Moily, on behalf of the IOC, announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh each to the next of the kin of those killed in the fire. This would be in addition to the compensation due from the state government and other authorities.

He said in addition to the huge quantity of petrol lost in the fire, the IOC had suffered damages to the tune of about Rs 10 crore in infrastructure.

Moily ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident to identify the cause and work out measures to prevent such disaster in the future. A similar fire in a Jaipur oil storage tanker in October 2009 had left 11 persons dead.

He said the inquiry report would be submitted by January 20.

Moily said the government would try to resettle the families of the two victims to have been identified so far in their home state of Bihar.

The third body was recovered near the inflamed storage tanker this morning and Surat district collector Jayprakash Shivhare said the authorities were taking steps to identify the body.

He said the two deceased identified so far were not staff members of the IOC but were “contractual labourers”.

Family members of three more workers said there was no trace of their relatives since yesterday.

Giving identical statements, the wife of one of the missing workers, the sister of another and the son of a third worker said they used to come home for lunch in the afternoon every day but failed to turn up yesterday. There is no trace of the three since then.

They also complained against the IOC authorities alleging that when they went in search of their relatives late last night, the authorities did not cooperate with them.