Pipeline fire: Centre-appointed committee to probe the fire tragedy

Rajahmundry: The Centre-appointed committee probing the GAIL pipeline fire tragedy at Nagaram village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh in which 17 people were killed, on Sunday visited the spot and examined the damage.

The committee comprising R K Singh, who heads the high-level probe panel, Joint Secretary (Refineries) R P Singh and Safety and Environment Executive Director D K Deshpande visited the spot and examined the houses and places which got damaged in the Saturday's deadly blast and fire incident.

The locals urged the team to provide protection and safety to those villagers who are still residing there after the mishap.

The locals also urged the committee members to take steps to replace the existing rusted pipelines with new ones and take preventive steps to avoid recurrence of such incidents in future.

Kakinada TDP MP Thota Narasimham also met the members of the committee and requested them to provide all possible help to the affected families.

Later, Narasimham visited the hospital where the injured persons had been admitted.

Meanwhile, GAIL authorities met the East Godavari district collector Neetu Prasad and held discussions.

Prasad held a review meeting with the officials of GAIL where she discussed relief and rescue operations in the village.

Gail India has however decided to compensate Rs 5 lakh as fixed deposit to each victim who has been permanently disabled in the incident and also Rs 50,000 to each injured person in the incident