Qualla: 2020 Assam Gas and Oil Leak

2020 Assam Gas and Oil Leak: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit কৌশিক বৰুৱা, CC BY-SA 4.0. For 173 days, Well No. 5 burned. The gas blowout at Oil India Limited's Baghjan Oil Field in Tinsukia district, Assam, began on 27 May 2020 as an uncontrolled leak -- a roar of methane and propane escaping from a capped well at 3,729 meters depth. Thirteen days later it caught fire, and the column of flame became a landmark visible across the floodplain, an orange pillar that would outlast India's monsoon season, a government investigation, and every initial attempt to shut it down.

Image: কৌশিক বৰুৱা | CC BY-SA 4.0

2020 Assam Gas and Oil Leak: A Well Without Permission

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Vincentz, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Baghjan Oil Field sits next to Dibru-Saikhowa National Park, one of Assam's most ecologically sensitive areas. Gangetic dolphins swim its rivers. Wild horses, hoolock gibbons, slow loris, capped langurs, tigers, and rare butterflies inhabit its forests and wetlands. The adjac...

Image: Frank Vincentz | CC BY-SA 3.0

2020 Assam Gas and Oil Leak: The Day the Well Broke

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit কৌশিক বৰুৱা, CC BY-SA 4.0. Workers noticed gas escaping from the capped well and began evacuating before the full blowout hit. The leaked gas -- a mix of propane, methane, and propylene -- spread quickly. When fire erupted on 9 June, it consumed nearby trees, crops, and houses. Fifty homes burned. Four peo...

Image: কৌশিক বৰুৱা | CC BY-SA 4.0

2020 Assam Gas and Oil Leak: Six Months to Kill a Well

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit কৌশিক বৰুৱা, CC BY-SA 4.0. Four days after the initial leak, an OIL spokesperson acknowledged that well control operations had not yet started. The effort to cap the well became an ordeal of compounding failures. Severe monsoon flooding -- the same Assam floods that killed 16 people and collapsed the Doom ...

Image: কৌশিক বৰুৱা | CC BY-SA 4.0

2020 Assam Gas and Oil Leak: Accountability and Aftermath

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit কৌশিক বৰুৱা, CC BY-SA 4.0. The National Green Tribunal's expert committee, led by former judge A.P. Katakey, found that OIL had failed to comply with environmental laws and its own internal safety procedures. The preliminary report stated bluntly that following those procedures could have prevented the blo...

Image: কৌশিক বৰুৱা | CC BY-SA 4.0