Dubai: Four people, including an electrical engineer, with severe burns to their bodies have been battling for their lives in Rashid Hospital since Monday morning.
The engineer and four others were rushed to the hospital after sustaining varying degrees of burns, while testing a Ring Main Unit (RMU) — electrical equipment installed to protect transformers while distributing power — at a substation in Dubai International Airport’s Concourse 3, which is under construction.
Two of them, including the engineer who works for ETA Ascon identified as Abdul Samad Fajr Allah, 26, and Dev Bahadur, a technician are suffering 90 per cent burns (third-degree burns) and are in critical condition. While two others Habib Rahman, who was in charge of substation 4, where the incident occurred, and Ramesh Natrajan are suffering from 60 and 50 per cent burns respectively.
The fifth worker, Arshad sustained minor injuries and has been already discharged.
Gulf News didn’t get to see all the victims but according to officials at the hospital, most of Abdul Samad’s and Bahadur’s bodies are burnt and are heavily bandaged.
Natrajan suffered burns on the right side of his face, arms, back and legs, whereas, Habib Rahman, whole face, arms, legs and back were wrapped in bandages.
An eyewitness, who was fortunate enough not to get hurt, told Gulf News he heard people screaming at first. “There were four or five people there, they started screaming all of a sudden. When I turned, there was a flash of light. The workers’ clothes were totally burnt. They were able to walk a certain distance, but all I heard after that was “Ya Allah, Ya Allah.”
The eyewitness said he was standing four to five metres away from the RMU, which was being tested at the basement of Dubai Airport’s Concourse 3 and was lucky to be among three of the team who escaped unhurt.
“I could easily have been one among them, fate would have that I was away at the very moment when the tragedy struck,” said the eyewitness, who is also an engineer.
He added that the team had taken all safety precautions before beginning the test and the engineer who suffered burns was wearing 33kv gloves (high-voltage gloves) to handle the 11kV RMU.
“I don’t know what went wrong, the matter is being investigated,” was all he could say, when asked about the possible cause behind the flare.
When contacted, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), which is the supplier of power in the emirate, said the power supply at the time was stable.
“We have checked with the relevant operations team at Dewa and have been advised that the system was functioning normally, with no interruptions or abnormalities reported in the system,” said Khawla Al Muhairi, Vice-President of Corporate and Marketing Communications at Dewa.
Earlier, Dubai Airports Corporation said its team of experts was investigating the reasons behind the incident and all necessary measures will be taken to ensure such accidents do not happen again.
