Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The four work­ers in­jured in last month’s fire at Ram­co In­dus­tries Ltd have been dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal con­firmed their re­lease yes­ter­day, not­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent are still un­der­way. He said both the Fire Ser­vice and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) Agency are con­duct­ing sep­a­rate probes, while Ram­co has hired an in­de­pen­dent third par­ty to in­ves­ti­gate. The com­pa­ny ex­pects to com­plete its re­view by mid-Au­gust.

Mooni­lal said the OSH Agency has ap­proved op­er­a­tions at the fa­cil­i­ty’s 20lb and 100lb cylin­der fill­ing plants, which are now op­er­a­tional. How­ev­er, the fill­ing bay where the fire broke out re­mains cor­doned off. To main­tain sup­ply, bulk load­ings are be­ing sup­ple­ment­ed through Aero­gas fa­cil­i­ties in Point Lisas.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the home of one of the in­jured work­ers on Sun­day, he was still ban­daged on his face, hands, and knees. He said he would seek ad­vice be­fore speak­ing to the me­dia.

The fire oc­curred around 7 pm on Ju­ly 24 at one of the load­ing bays at Ram­co’s Cross Cross­ing com­pound in San Fer­nan­do. Ini­tial re­ports in­di­cat­ed that a tank truck was be­ing loaded when the dri­ver drove off while still con­nect­ed, trig­ger­ing the blaze.

Near­by res­i­dents, fear­ing for their safe­ty, evac­u­at­ed their homes un­til the all-clear was giv­en. They have since called on the com­pa­ny and au­thor­i­ties to im­ple­ment a prop­er emer­gency re­sponse plan to bet­ter pro­tect them in the event of a re­cur­rence.