Hundred days on, Assam’s Baghjan gas well continues to burn

A hundred days after one of its natural gas wells in Assam’s Baghjan area reported a blowout, which subsequently caught fire, Oil India Limited (OIL) has been unsuccessful in controlling it so far. On Wednesday, Commerce and Industry Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said it might take another six to eight weeks to douse the fire at the well. “While experts from Canada are on their way to Assam with ‘snubbing’ equipment to kill the well, the process may take up to six-eight weeks,” said Patowary, replying to a zero hour notice by Congress’s Durga Bhumij at the Assam Assembly on Wednesday.

The ecological disaster at Baghjan in Tinsukia district was precipitated by the blowout — or an uncontrollable release of natural gas at well number 5, reported on May 27. On June 9, the well, located close to the Dibru-Saikhowa national park and Maguri Motapung wetland, caught fire, displacing thousands from their homes and leading to the deaths of two firefighters.