Kendrapara, June 15: Panic gripped the residents of Kalabuda village under Garadapur block Friday when a newly drilled tube well started emitting an inflammable gas.
According to sources, one Maguni Sahu dug a tube well four days ago. He invited a priest Friday for performing a pooja at the well as the day was an auspicious one. After conducting the pooja, the priest lighted an incense stick near the tube well pipe. Immediately, the air above the pipe caught fire.
Sensing some inflammable gas was coming out of the tube well, the family members lit a match stick near the place. Fire started catching outside the well, said Kalpana Sahu, Maguni’s wife.
As reports of gas emission spread fast, people from the village and neighbouring areas started thronging the site.
Meanwhile, the locals demanded the district administration to inform the Geological Survey of India (GSI) officials and ask them to visit the spot to study the phenomenon.
The Korua fire brigade personnel who visited the area suspect the gas might be methane. They told the family and the villagers not to get panicked.
They also offered an interesting explanation. Such things mostly occur in coastal areas. During high tide trees submerge under the water. Over a period of time, an impervious sticky grey clay soil layer covers it. The rotten trees under the ground lead to gas formation in these areas. When it finds an escape route, the gas moves up from the ground as long as its reserve lasts. How long the gas emission will last can only be ascertained by the GSI officials, said the fire station personnel.
This is not the first instance in this area. Natural gas emitted in Mathasahi village two years back when a 60-year-old farmer, Sadasiva Mallik, had started digging a tube well in the backyard of his house.
Similarly, gas came out from the newly dug tube well of Nilamani Nayak, 70, a resident of Mantripada village under Derabish block in Kendrapara district in 2007. The family members used the gas for cooking purpose for several years by fixing a gas pipe to the tube well, a report said.
PNN
