NEW DELHI: At least seven people were killed and hundreds hospitalised after a pre-dawn gas leak at a chemical plant in eastern India on Thursday that left unconscious victims lying in the streets, authorities said.
The gas escaped out of tanks at a complex owned by South Korea’s LG Chem that had suspended operations because of India’s coronavirus lockdown.
Footage on Indian television channels showed people, including women and children, slumped motionless in the streets of Visakhapatnam, an industrial port city in Andhra Pradesh state. B K Naik, district hospitals coordinator, said that seven people had been confirmed killed and 1,000 had initially been hospitalised.
“This is a calamity,” Naik told media.
However throughout the day hundreds of people were released and Naik said on Thursday afternoon about 600 remained in hospital, none of whom were in a critical condition. Pictures taken by AFP at the King George Hospital in the city early in the day had shown two or three patients on each bed, many of them children, and many unconscious. Some of the patients were lying on the beds in the sparse hospital wearing just shorts and without tops or shoes.
“I pray for everyone’s safety and well-being in Visakhapatnam,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter. The plant, operated by LG Polymers, a subsidiary of LG Chem, is on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam.
The city and the surrounding area are home to around five million people. LG Chem released a statement in South Korea late on Thursday morning indicating gas had stopped leaking.
“The gas leak situation is now under control and we are exploring all ways to provide speedy treatment for those who suffer from inhaling the leaked gas,” the statement said. The plant had been left idle because of the coronavirus lockdown, according to Swaroop Rani, an assistant police commissioner in Visakhapatnam. “(The gas) was left there because of the lockdown. It led to a chemical reaction and heat was produced inside the tanks, and the gas leaked because of that,” Rani told media.
She said local villagers raised the alarm about 3:30 am, saying there was gas in the air, and police who rushed to the scene had to quickly retreat for fear of being poisoned. “One could feel the gas in the air and it was not possible for any of us to stay there for more than a few minutes,” she said. LG Chem confirmed the plant, which makes polystyrene products, was not operating because of the lockdown, but said there were maintenance staff at the facility. “While it’s true that the factory wasn’t operating as it was under lockdown, there were maintenance workers inside,” a company spokesman told AFP in Seoul. “A worker on night shift discovered the leak and reported it.”
According to the Times of India there were at least 10 were feared dead, including an eight-year-old girl, and 5,000 people had fallen sick.
Residents were complaining of breathing problems, rashes on their body and sore eyes, it added. R. Brahma, a government official part of the relief and rescue operation, said “mist blowers” had been used to spray water in the affected area to neutralise the effect of the gas.
Authorities advised people to wear wet clothes and masks, and avoid eating uncovered food.
They also tweeted that people should eat bananas and drink milk to “neeutralise the effect of the gas”.
The incident had echoes of one of the worst industrial disasters in history when gas leaked from a pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal in 1984. Around 3,500 people, mainly in shanties around the plant operated by Union Carbide, died in the days that followed and thousands more in the following years. People continue to suffer its after-effects to this day. Government statistics say that at least 100,000 people living near to the Union Carbide plant have been victims of chronic illnesses.
Survivors still suffer from ailments such as respiratory and kidney problems, hormonal imbalances, mental illness and several forms of cancer. New generations have been made ill by the polluted groundwater and poisonous breast milk fed to them from birth.
In the early hours of May 7, a plastics-manufacturing plant in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, began to leak a poisonous gas that soon spread to five villages nearby. The gas, believed to be a toxin of some kind, quickly rendered over a thousand people sick and, a few hours later, reports began to emerge of deaths.
The plant, called LG Polymers, is situated in a 60-acre plot in Gopalapatnam area. Multiple teams of National Disaster Response Force personnel have already reached the spot. At least according to one first-person account on Firstpost, people in the vicinity had gone to bed with the windows open to beat the early summer heat.
“Then we woke up to this fog. The entire area was covered with this mist-like chemical. It caused a burning sensation on the skin. People were fainting even as they were walking.”
Srijana Gummalla, the commissioner of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, said on Twitter that people who had inhaled the gas were found unconscious. According to Reuters, at least eleven people have died thus far, over 300 have been hospitalised, another 1,500 have been evacuated from a neighbouring village, and over 5,000 people have fallen sick.
According to multiple media reports, the toxin is believed to be styrene gas. Styrene – also known as phenylethene – is an organic compound derived from benzene and used to manufacture polystyrene. Polystyrene is in turn used to make, among other things, use-and-throw cups to carry tea and coffee. At room temperature and pressure, styrene is usually a colourless, oily liquid with a sweet smell. Aged styrene may appear yellowish.–Agencies
