Five deaths and loss of Rs. 1 thousand crores in Serum fire. Maha CM Udhav visits the Serum Institute on Friday

There have been five casualties in Thursday’s massive fire that broke out at the Terminal 1 building of Serum Institute of India at Pune about 1.5 kilometres away from its original plant where the Covid 19 Oxford and AsteraZeneca vaccines are being manufactured and stored causing a colossal financial losses of Rs. 1000 crores as revealed by the SII CEO Adar Poonawala while addressing the media. The massive fire had broken out, the actual reason of which has not been ascertained till yet, at 2.45 PM on Thursday on the fourth and fifth floor of its new plant that was still under construction for future vaccine production of Covid 19 and other vaccines as well.

It took almost two to three hours to dodge the fire in which more than fifteen fire tenders and hundreds of firemen fought hard to bring the massive fire under control. The firemen had earlier given the information that three out of the four persons have been rescued but it was later revealed that five workers viz electricians n labourers who were trapped inside succumbed to the massive fire. However, till now there is no information about the financial compensation to be given to the bereaved families of those killed in this tragedy either by the CEO of Serum Institute, Pune or the Maharashtra government.

Meanwhile, the chief minister of Maharashtra Udhav Thakrey and his son, who is also the minister in his cabinet visited Serum Institute’s damaged building due to fire. The office of the chief minister tweeted : CM Uddhav Balasaheb Thakrey today visited the @SerumInstIndia premises at Hadapsar in Pune and inspected the site that caught fire yesterday. He also spoke to Adar Poonawala hi and took stock of the situation and extent of the damages caused.

The CEO Adar Poonawala also issued series of tweets disclosing about the loss of love bed of some labourers and workers in the fire at Serum Institute’s new building on Thursday writing : We have just received some distressing updates. Upon further investigations we have learnt that there has unfortunately been some loss of lives at the incident. We are deeply saddened and offer our condolences to the family members of the departed. Adar Poonawala also thanked the Maharashtra chief minister Udhav Thakrey and his minister Son for having visited the Serum Institute premises and extending all possible help and support during the terrible crisis. He assured that as he has also seen, that the production of Covishield vaccine is on schedule and remains unaffected by the tragedy. He also reassured all the governments of the centre and other states including the countrymen that there would be no loss of Covishield production due to the multi production building that he had kept in reserve to deal with such contingencies at the SERUM INSTITUTE. He also thanked the Pune City police and the fire department for their cooperation in extinguishing the massive fire and rescuing few lives though despite best efforts couldn’t succeed in saving five persons, unfortunately.

Pics from twitter