NEW DELHI:
A major fire engulfed one of the buildings situated within the Serum Institute of India (SII)'s plant here on Thursday afternoon, officials said,.
Five people died when a big fire broke out on Thursday inside the sprawling SII complex, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, in Pune,
The dead were pulled out of a building under construction after first reports that were no casualties.
"Four people were evacuated from the building but when it came under control, five bodies were found by our jawans,” said Pune Mayor Murlidhar Mohol, referring to rescue workers.
Mohol spoke to news agency ANI.
“We are deeply saddened and offer our deepest condolences to the family members of the departed," said Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute.The fire is believed to have started because of an electrical fault and was controlled after three hours, reported NDTV.
He said its manufacturing plant at Manjari here suffered a loss of over Rs 1,000 crore in Thursday’s fire that claimed five lives.
Poonawalla said, “We have got multiple facilities. The fire did not affect the supply of the Covid vaccine. Our other productions, such as the BCG vaccine, suffered a loss. We will make up for the supply gap. We have suffered huge financial losses. But there is no supply loss.”
“After the fire broke, we had initially received a report that all workers have been rescued. We tweeted the information because we were happy. After the fire was doused and the fumes dissipated, we got to know that five workers had died. We did not have the list of workers at the building. We later got an update and have offered our condolences to the victims’ families. My father has announced compensation (Rs25 lakh each) for the victims’ family members,” he added.
Thick clouds of smoke could be seen billowing out of one of the buildings in the SII complex at Gopalpatti, though company officials remained tightlipped on the development.
“This would not affect production of the coronavirus vaccine,'' a source however close to the world’s biggest vaccine maker said