Officials from police, fire services and ONGC have successfully extinguished a borewell fire that broke out on the bank of a fish pond in Sivakodu village of Konaseema district, police said on Saturday.
After dousing the flames, the 350-foot deep borewell has been sealed shut with cement, police added. “ONGC officials used water and also mud to extinguish the fire. Instead of dousing it early, they allowed it to flare for some time to make it easy and enable the surrounding gas to come out,” Kothapeta sub-divisional police officer K V Ramana told PTI on Saturday.
Also Read | Two killed, seven injured in blast at pharma company in Andhra Pradesh
There was no loss of life or injuries as the fire broke out at a place where there were no people or trees, he said. The fire streamed out of the old borewell located away from human settlements in Razole mandal.
It started in the morning when an aquaculturist operated the borewell after a long time, police said. “It is a borewell on the bank of a fish pond. This is an old borewell. When the farmer turned the old borewell on, first water came and later gas began coming out,” Konaseema District Superintendent of Police P Sridhar said.
A technical team is ascertaining the cause of the blaze and the source of the gas. Officials of the team are checking if the farmer had dug up the bank freshly or if there were other reasons. An ONGC team from Rustumbada village near Narsapur in West Godavari district worked on putting out the fire.
Earlier, Sridhar observed that there were no ONGC pipelines in the vicinity of the pond but pointed out that a 'gas kick' (the unexpected entry of gas into a bore well caused by change in pressure, usually during drilling) could be a possible reason for the fire.