Pune, 22nd Jan: On Thursday Afternoon, a major fire engulfed the three upper floors of one of the newly constructed building of Serum Institute of India (SII). The fire took the life of 5 people on spot and injuring 10 more.
(Serum is a Key Player in global supply of vaccines against novel COVID-19)
It took nearly 3 hours & 10 fire brigade vehicles to extinguish the fire at the SII. However, there was no loss to covishield production as it was running on at another building inside the campus.
A recent tweet by SII CEO Adar Poonawalla stated, “I would like to reassure all governments and the public that there would be no loss of Covishield production due to multiple production buildings that I had kept in reserve to deal with such contingencies…”.
The 5 people who were found dead were not the employees of SII. They were appointed by a local contractor and were doing welding and air-conditioning jobs in the building, said sources.
DCP Namrata Patil stated, “After such a major incident, a detail investigation would be ordered to ascertain the cause of the fire”.
