The IOCL Depot Blast..!!

One more page turned over my college days saga today..oh we had so much of adventure and fun in college..

This incident was though  a man-made disaster turned into a calamity for almost all the residents, to those of us who were there, my fellow classmates and friends, it also instilled for us some of the best moments of our college time..

It is the IOCL Depot blast incident which I am going to write about today.

You may have got a rough idea of the magnitude of the incident by now..

The press and media language may not explain the incident in the way we had faced it..

Let me tell you the whole story from my and some of my friend's point of view..

It was 29 October 2009 around 7:30 PM (IST), like any other ordinary day, I was browsing internet, sitting in front of my pc, placed by window side and watching some videos. My friend stepped inside the room, while she was searching around for a movie. I had a nice collection of movies back then. I was helping her navigate the list, so that she could choose the ones that she wanted. I must mention, she is the best story narrator I have ever met, even if you have never thought of watching a movie, the movie which she recommends & tells you the story of, you would want to watch it. So she mentioned about one of the movies she had recently watched. She started summarizing the zest of the movie, with good pretty good reasons to watch the movie.

Suddenly, we heard a bang and felt as if lots of small pebbles were thrown on us..when we looked at the window, what we could only see ...was the red colored sky..like a big big cloud of fire.. :)

Both my roommates ran outside the room, shouting and asking us to come out too, as the electricity had went and it was dark all around the hostel and seemed to be fiery outside..I like any other incident, did not bother about this one too and asked my friend to continue..she did sound a little upset..as lots of people were shouting outside..she was scared it seemed and asked me to come along with her to go out and check what exactly was happening..I agreed..

When we reached the hostel's entrance, what we could see was large cloud of fire and smoke in the air, seemed as if fire balls were being dropped, and everyone was shouting and running from one corner of the ground to another..Now it was the first time, when I felt a little worried..we also ran outside to check out what exactly had happened..the first image on everyone's mind was that of a terrorist attack..

We reached the main ground, where we could see only bigger cloud of fire, with no start and end of it visible at all..what we could only see was the sky full of fire.

Neither any of the cell phones had any signal, nor anyone knew what exactly was happening. After some 1 hour 30 minutes of suspense, when reliance started working, we got to know it was a blast in the nearby depot oil tank, holding around 8000 Kilolitres of oil and it got spread to all the 11 tanks, holding a total of around 60,000 kilolitres of oil.. Oh My God..!!

Some of my friends were crying and others were wondering if would be able to escape as the fire was spreading like hell, with our college being only around 800-900 metres away. I was a little tensed about my parents as I had left my cell phone inside the room. Our hostel was closest to the depot, so no one was allowed to go back to the hostel. But I wanted my cell phone at any cost to inform my parents that I was all well and not to worry about anything..I tried to move towards the hostel but the warden saw me and did not let me go..I again tried after 10 mins..and this time when eveyone's attention was diverted towards some other thing, I sneaked into(alone) the hostel to pick up my phone..By the time I could take my cell phone and come out, I could hear lots of voices in the hostel..everyone was asked to pick one or two things..as we were going to vacate the college campus in the following 15 minutes..What I could only think of was marksheets and documents..I picked them up, leaving all the stuff behind..

We had a few buses to take us to a resort owned by the college management..This was the best time I would say, people were carrying loads of stuff and were moving as if they were going to some refugee camps..At around 12:45 am we all reached safely to a far off place, but from there also we could clearly see that fireball in the sky..When we reached there we realized that it was 1:30 a.m. and had not eaten anything. We could see a wedding function going on there in the resort..We seemed to be very poor people to all those who had come to attend the marriage..They thought as if some poor kids have come to collect the left over food..As we all were in the kind of dress one is supposed to wear in hostel in the evening..I made my friends realize that they are considering us "beggars".. But then, we were really  hungry and were happy that we were going to get some good party food instead of that awful hostel food..Some of us even doubted that they had got food from the hostel mess and will be served the same..but Thank God..that was not the truth.. ;)

When all my friends came into senses they did not forget to curse me..saying.."Congrats, your wish is fulfilled, you wanted to witness a blast..now enjoy.." but I would really say it was a very different experience, something that I would never forget..That whole night, we could not sleep, talked and played, was kind of a picnic..very adventurous and amazing, something that I would never forget..ever..