Operations were suspended on Sunday at the Nagarjuna Agrichem factory at Chilakapalem village in Srikakulam district following an agitation by the public.

A reactor in the plant exploded on Saturday resulting in a huge fire and injuries to more than a dozen workers. There were no casualties and all the workers were recovering at different hospitals in Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam.

On Sunday, when the first shift workers came to the factory, people from the 15 villages in the vicinity gathered at the gates and stopped them from going in. They staged a demonstration and asked the district authorities to close down the factory immediately, as it posed a great danger to their lives. The agitating public also stopped traffic on NH 5 in the vicinity of the factory for hours.

The agitators contended that had the fire spread to the other reactors in the factory the consequences would have been even more disastrous and, therefore, the factory should be shut down immediately. The management was not taking proper safety measures, they alleged.

In response to the agitation, the district administration served a show-cause notice on the management on Sunday afternoon, instructing it to stop operations for a fortnight, and offer an explanation on July 15 on the accident and the related issues. The district authorities assured the public in the nearby villages that all steps would be taken to ensure their safety and that requisite steps would be taken against the management.

People in 15 nearby villages were on tenterhooks for the better part of Saturday, after the accident occurred at 9 a.m. Many of them left the villages and some were evacuated by the authorities. The fire was brought under control only late in the evening.

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