Battle to secure gas-leak plant
VISAKHAPATNAM, India/ SEOUL — Engineers battled on Friday to prevent more toxic gas escaping at a chemical plant on India’s east coast, a day after a predawn leak killed 12 people and knocked others unconscious in the street.
Although the death toll was lower than feared, the accident which left hundreds hospitalized outside the industrial port city of Visakhapatnam evoked memories of Bhopal, where a gas leak killed around 3,500 people in 1984.
Late on Thursday, the evacuation zone around the plant owned by South Korea’s LG Chem was widened with hundreds more people in 10 localities brought to safety as a precaution, police said.
“The situation is better now but we can’t say it is completely normal. The temperature in the tanks has been brought down by 120 C but we need to being it down further by 25 degrees,” senior police officer Swaroop Rani said.
“Twelve people have died so far. No one is critical. But we have told those who have recovered that they may go either to their relatives’ houses or to shelters that we have set up till the situation is completely normal.”
On Friday, authorities doubled the evacuation area around the factory in Andhra Pradesh to a 5-kilometer radius, waking residents in the middle of the night and herding them into buses in case more poison should escape.
Police took to the streets with loudhailers to tell residents to leave their homes and board the buses, said Sheikh Salim, a 21-year-old fruit seller who lives about 2.5 km from the plant.
LG Chem said there was no fresh leak, but as a precautionary measure nearby people should be moved.
Horrifying footage on Indian television showed men, women and children slumped motionless in the streets after the Thursday morning gas escape.
“There was utter confusion and panic. People were unable to breathe, they were gasping for air. Those who were trying to escape collapsed on the roads — kids, women and all,” resident Kumar Reddy, 24, told reporters.
B K Naik, district hospitals coordinator, said 1,000 had initially been hospitalized. By Thursday afternoon around 600 remained under treatment, with none in a critical condition. “This is a calamity,” Naik said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter: “I pray for everyone’s safety and well-being in Visakhapatnam.”
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 nearly five million people.
The plant had been left idle because of the coronavirus lockdown, according to 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 Agence France-Presse on Thursday.
LG Chem confirmed that the plant, which makes polystyrene products, was not operating because of the lockdown, but there were maintenance staff at the facility, a spokesman in Seoul told AFP.
Indian police have filed a complaint against LG Polymers over the leak.
A copy of the police complaint filed against the management of LG Polymers cited several counts of negligence and culpable homicide.
An LG Chem spokesman in Seoul declined to comment on the report.
Authorities advised people to wear wet clothes and masks, avoid eating uncovered food and consume bananas and milk to “neutralize the effect of the gas”.
According to the Center for Science and Environment, the gas was styrene, which is likely carcinogenic and, when combined with oxygen in the air, forms the more lethal styrene dioxide.
There was utter confusion and panic. People were unable to breathe, they were gasping for air. Those who were trying to escape collapsed on the roads — kids, women and all.” Kumar Reddy, Visakhapatnam resident