Paint-thinner drums explode for hours at Triveni Medichem in Hapur
SP Kunwar Gyaneshay Singh reported no deaths after the morning fire at plot B-12 on the Masuri-Gulaothi Road. About a dozen tenders fought the blaze for four to five hours. Thinner ran down a drain and scorched neighbouring sheds.
Hapur2 min read
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A fire at Triveni Medichem, a paint-thinner unit in the Dhaulana industrial area of Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, ran through the morning of 8 September and set off a chain of drum explosions. Superintendent of Police Kunwar Gyaneshay Singh said no one was killed. Workers were taken out of the plant and the sheds next door. Neighbours heard blasts as drums left the yard and landed on the Masuri-Gulaothi Road.
The factory occupies plot B-12, Phase I of the UPSIDC estate, near the industrial police post. Local reports named Lala Ghanshyamdas as the owner. Fire officers said the blaze showed itself around 11 a.m. Thinner stored on site flowed into a drain and carried flame along the ground. Front walls of two adjoining factories were damaged. The door of an office in a third unit was scorched. Trees and vehicles immediately outside were burned.
About a dozen tenders attended. Crews used foam and high-pressure water from several sides and an articulated tower from above. Officials later said the fire was brought under control after roughly four hours. Some local accounts put the fight closer to five hours and counted 13 appliances. Either figure is long for a single-plot fire. Thinner is a light, volatile mix. Once drums start to cook, each blast throws burning liquid further from the seat.
Hapur sits on the industrial belt east of Delhi. Chemical and recycling units in UPSIDC estates have burned before. The pattern is familiar: drums in the open or in sheds without adequate separation, a drain that was never meant to carry solvent, and a response that arrives after the first explosions have already moved the fire. Singh’s statement closed the casualty question for the day. It did not close the question of how hundreds of drums of thinner sat in a plot tight against other factories.
Labour and pollution officers will now want the storage licence, the last inspection date and the inventory. Insurers will want the same papers. Residents who spent the late morning watching a column of black smoke will want to know whether the drain that carried thinner also carried it toward houses. The useful public fact on 8 September is the simplest one. A thinner plant in Dhaulana burned for hours, drums flew, and the people inside got out.
