Indian navy officer dies in Mumbai ship accident

MUMBAI: An Indian naval officer was killed and “some” dock workers were injured Friday in a gas leak aboard a yet-to-be commissioned naval ship, the defence ministry said. The accident was the latest in a string to hit the navy. “Commander Kuntal Wadhwa has died,” Commander Rahul Sinha, chief defence ministry spokesperson, told AFP. A statement by the defence ministry said “some” dock workers were injured but did not say how many or disclose the nature of the injuries. The accident occurred aboard the ship called Yard 701 by its builders, the Mazagaon Dock Ltd, in Mumbai, headquarters of India’s Western Naval Command. The ship was undergoing trials at the Mumbai Port Trust when its carbon dioxide unit developed a problem, causing the gas leakage and injuries, the defence ministry said in the statement. “It is a destroyer with stealth features and we were hoping to hand it over to the navy in a month’s time,” Parvez Panthanky, a spokesperson for the Mazagaon Dock, told reporters. The ship is set to be the first in a new class of destroyers. The naval spokesperson said the accident would cause a delay in commissioning of the ship. More details about the cause of the accident would only be available after talking to the shipbuilders, the spokesperson said. The Indian Navy has been without a chief since Admiral DK Joshi resigned last month after a fire on one of the country’s submarines, the INS Sindhuratna, killed two officers. Indian Navy ships have been hit by a series of accidents in the past few months with the worst involving the INS Sindurakshak, a submarine which burst into flames in Mumbai harbour last August, killing 18 sailors and sinking the vessel.