Daily Times

KARACHI: Fire fighters have failed to douse fire that broke out at a storage terminal filled with a chemical called ‘Methanol’ in the proximity of Keamari, Fire safety experts said on Sunday.

“We have used all kinds of foams and extinguishing chemicals to douse fire, but highly toxic fumes being discharged from the flames is worrying us,” he informed,” Daily Times.

Fire safety officials further said that “A chemical called ‘Methanol’ was present in the storage tank, generally not considered as volatile as far as fire safety is concern, but once fire breaks out in it, it will burn the entire commodity in the storage area and will take its time to end up.”

The fire broke out at 11.30 am on Saturday. It has been 36 hours of the incident and till filing of this story, it was established that it would take roughly 40 hours or more to finish the entire stock of Methanol present in the storage tank that was about 600 to 700 metric tones, experts further informed Daily Times.

Fire safety experts further said that they had tried over 12,000 litres of different kinds of foam that was available in the market to extinguish the fire but they had failed to bring it in control.

The storage terminal belongs to a private company, Pakistan House International (PHI) that also arranged 5,000 litres of foams to douse the fire, another source said.

The Keamari oil terminal have witnessed third fire incident during the week. At least two laborers have died and one injured at the site of the incident. As many as 12 fire tenders and one snorkel truck are currently being used to extinguis the fire. Experts and fire tenders of Karachi Port Trust (KPT), Pakistan Navy, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) have joined the fire fighting operation.