Pune: 5 dead in Serum Institute fire; Covishield vaccine production plant safe

Police personnel walk outside the Serum Institute of India in Pune. Pic/AFP

At least 5 people were reported dead after a fire engulfed an under construction unit of Pune's Serum Institute of India (SII) on Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Rajesh Tope confirmed.

"Five charred bodies recovered from Serum Institute of India building where fire broke out in afternoon," news agency PTI quoted a fire official as saying.

Nine people were evacuated safely from the building, a PTI report stated. Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla tweeted about the incident.

Firefighters try to control a fire that broke out at India's Serum Institute in Pune on January 21, 2021. Photo: AFP

The new unit at Manjri SEZ which is not fully functional yet has several new buildings. The fire started on one of the upper floors of a building. The police was alerted at around 2.45pm and fire was brought under control by 5pm by the Pune Fire Service. Fire tenders reached the spot and started work on dousing the fire immediately. Officials said that 15 fire tenders were pressed into the service.

SII officials said that the Covishield vaccine - jointly developed by AztraZeneca and University of Oxford - is produced and stocked at its Hinjewadi manufacturing facility, located several kms away from the fire-ravaged unit in Manjari.

Preliminary reports said the fire broke out when welding work was being carried out.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Health Minister Tope, FDA Minister Rajendra Shingne, and others spoke with the SII top brass to apprise themselves of the exact scenario.

Though sabotage has been ruled out, in view of the national and global concerns the tragedy evoked, Pawar said that a thorough probe would be conducted into the incident, while reiterating that the Covidshield line facility was unaffected.

Visiting the site, Shiv Sena workers' wing Bharatiya Kamgar Sena's General Secretary Raghunath Kuchik, accorded a MoS rank, termed the tragedy as "shocking and accidental" and hoped that there are no more casualties.

With inputs from agencies