visakhapatnam is high up on the industrial curve with as many as 6667 large medium and small scale industries in its suburbs on the anvil are also a nuclear power plant almost next door and a petroleum corridor with such impressive credentials we are justifiably a proud people but are we safe the central pollution control board has identified the industrial bowl around vizag as one of the most heavily polluted clusters in the country in our daily lives we must be breathing in toxic pollutants drinking polluted water and eating polluted food more worrisome is the lack of safety in industry all around in the last few years there have been more than eight major accidents in and around vizag causing much human loss and damage to public property just to give an idea four occurred in chemical and pharma factories one in ntpcs simhadri at least two in visakha steel plant and two very major accidents in hpcls refinery the last three are navratna companies for a region that is eager to industrialize rapidly this certainly does not augur well its not as if a stray accident happened once at a given unit the same unit had a second or even a third major accident which shows that no corrective mechanism was put in place for example there were three accidents in a pharma complex near parawada the director general of fire services who investigated the matter declared that not only was the fire safety mechanism in the factory inadequate the unit did not have an noc from the competent authority so was the case at a drug unit near nakkapalli public sector unit hpcl is no better its 1997 accident is said to be the second worst accident in india next only to the bhopal disaster after the hullaballoo of investigations enquiries and promises we had yet another accident 16 years later in august 2013 worrying as the accidents are more baffling and shocking is the lack of preparedness of the plants in question in the accidents at the pharma units fire tenders had to be rushed from visakhapatnam anakapalle and the nearby areas indicating that the units did not have enough of their own further all the fire tenders together could not douse the fire as the warehouses stored waterreactive chemicals such as sodium the chemicals obviously called for a different kind of firefighting method which the pharma industry was not equipped for the firefighting operations in the 1997 hpcl accident were even more bizarre they had to wait for an expert ongc fire fighting team to be rushed to visakhapatnam the ferocity of the fire was such that 150 fire tenders from the navy the city and adjoining industrial units could not control it a consignment of firefighting foam had to be airlifted via hyderabad and an additional lot procured from distant baroda by a special air force plane as the visakhapatnam plant did not stock enough meanwhile a thick blanket of smoke engulfed the