6 killed, several injured in explosion at Army's ammunition depot in Wardha

NAGPUR: A blast at the premises of Army’s Central Ammunition Depot (CAD), Pulgaon, over 90 kms from Nagpur, has left six persons dead. The deceased persons include one army personnel, an ordnance factory employee and four labourers.
They were engaged in destroying 23 mm Shilka anti-aircraft ammunition rounds. The accident took place when the officials of Ordnance Factory were destroying the Shilka rounds production of which has been stopped owing to technical issues.
The operation was happening under the technical supervision of the CAD staff and contract workers were engaged too, said sources.The blast took place at 7 am.
Two years ago a much bigger blast at CAD had killed 18 persons, including two Lt Colonel and Major rank-officers. The army calls CAD as ‘Mecca of ammunition’ as it is the largest storage areas for ordnance built during the World War II.
Production of the 23 ammunition of Russian make has been stopped since 2014 by the Ordnance Factory which has reported that the rounds had issues related to designs and were prone to accidents. A source said that the decision to stop the production was taken by the ordnance factory board (OFB) after some accidents were reported in handling the 23 mm ammunition rounds.
The ammunition is made at the ordnance factory Khamaria in Jabalpur over 250 kms from Nagpur. The stock of the remaining rounds were cleared from the factory premises at Khamaria and were brought to CAD Pulgaon for destroying.
Sources privy to the issue said the rounds were taken to Pulgaon as the CAD had the expertise and also the space needed to carry out the operations. However, the labour which include contract workers were deployed by the ordnance factory which had engaged its own personnel at the site too.
A statement by the defence spokesperson at Nagpur said that the demolition of the explosives was carried out by the staff of ordnance factory Khamaria with the help of an authorised contractor. "The contractors’ services were used for digging the pit and placing a sand bag over the explosives. One ordnance factory staff and three contract workers sustained fatal injuries and have been rushed to the hospital," it said.
As per the recent reports, the incident has claimed six lives.
The deceased persons have been identified as Narayan Shamrao (55), Vilas Lakshman (40), Uday Virasingh (37), Pravin Prakash Munjewar (25), Rajkumar Bhovate (23) and Prabhakar Ramdas Wankhede (40).
In June 2016, when 18 persons including two army officers were killed, a warehouse storing anti tank mines had gone off. The mines were defective and were due to be destroyed or needed urgent repairs. The CAD had reported that the TNT (explosive material) was leaking out of the mines. Before a final decision could be taken, the mines went off leading to the biggest casualty at the CAD. Finally, the faulty mines were blamed for the incident.