Ministry of Defence23-February, 2006 15:57 IST
Fire accident on INS Magar near Visakhapatnam
Three sailors of the Indian Navy lost their lives and six others received burn injuries in an accidental fire on board INS Magar about 40 nautical miles off the coast of Visakhapatnam in Bay of Bengal at about 1700 h yesterday evening. The injured personnel were immediately evacuated by a Seaking helicopter and admitted in the naval hospital at Visakhapatnam. There was no damage to the ship that retuned safely to harbour at around 2300 h last night.

The mishap occurred when the ship was engaged in dumping life-expired ammunition. Preliminary reports indicate that one of the boxes, containing life-expired powder charge, caught fire towards the end of dumping operation resulting in the unfortunate incident.

A Board of Inquiry (BoI) has been instituted to probe the incident.

VG/AK
(Release ID :15798)