Five injured as naval shell explodes in shipyard

Five shipyard workers were injured Wednesday, two of them seriously, after workers at a defence shipyard tried to salvage the copper casing of an unexploded ordnance shell.

“Total five people were injured. Two seriously injured people have been admitted to a local hospital, while one person has been discharged,” Superintendent of Police Arvind Gawas said.

Police said that the the shell had been recovered by a dredger vessel used by port authorities to dredge the channel of the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT).

“The dredger had sucked in the shell along with the silt and dirt on the river bed and had emptied the dredged material in a container. The workers saw the copper shell of the unused shell in the debris and tried to salvage the copper, thinking they would sell it as scrap,” a police official said, adding that the explosion occurred when the yard workers tried to cut it open.

“Naval officials also visited the blast site and have requested that the exploded shell should be sent to them for further examination,” a shipyard official said.