Two separate fires broke out in the city on Sunday that might have turned serious. The first incident took place at the Continuous Casting Shop of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant at about 9.30 am when a slide gate broke down and molten steel, worth crores of rupees, overflowed into one of the casters (CCM -2) of the plant. Fortunately, no one was injured, said plant officials.

In the second incident, a fire engulfed a small hillock in the Visakha Refinery premises of the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation. Though safety officials acted quickly and brought the fire under control, smoke covered the entire hill and this, combined with effluents from the chimney caused considerable inconvenience to the locals. Meanwhile at the steel plant, though production was disrupted at CCM-2, the other casters continued operations. An official release stated that CCM-2 started normal operations at around 3 pm.

The release said that only electrical wires and other sundry items had been damaged and the 13 to 14 cubic metres of molten steel that had spilt would be used as scrap for the steel making process. At the HPCL site, though there was a lot of smoke, the locals did not panic as they said that it was a regular phenomenon. Last summer, there had been two incidents of fire on the same hillock which is located about half-a-kilometre from the processing units but is close to the administrative building. However, pipelines carrying fuel pass close to the hill.

An official release stated that the fire was due to the prevailing wind conditions and dry grass. The refinery operations, however, were not affected and the situation was fully brought under control. HPCL sources said that sparks from the chimney might have started the fire when it came in contact with the dry grass.