NEW DELHI: Officials ordered a wider evacuation of neighborhoods around an LG Chem plant in India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh early Friday after a second styrene gas leakage.
Earlier on Thursday, a massive leak from the gas plant killed at least 11 people and sent up to 800 to hospitals, with more than a hundred in critical condition.
“The situation is tense,” said N. Surendra Anand, a fire officer in Visakhapatnam district, where the factory is located,adding that people in a 5-kilometer radius of the factory were being moved out.
However, Srijana Gummalla, commissioner of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, downplayed concerns surrounding vapor emanating from the plant, saying the gas coming out had been fluctuating through the day and had largely subsided.
“The evacuation being carried out is a part of safety precautions we are taking,” she told Reuters.
Around midnight, police started urging people to move out of their houses and into waiting buses, said local resident Sheikh Salim, who lives about 2.5 km from the plant.
Hours earlier, an LG Chem spokesman in Seoul and federal authorities in New Delhi had said the leak had been contained. A 3-km radius had been evacuated on Thursday, S.N. Pradhan, director general of the National Disaster Response Force, told reporters in New Delhi.
About 2:30 a.m. local time on Thursday, residents of five villages near the South Korean-owned factory started to show symptoms of poisoning. Soon after that, people began to collapse on the streets. Pictures from the neighborhood of the plant, LG Polymers, showed scores of people lying unconscious.
“About 1,000-1,500 people have been evacuated, of whom more than 800 were taken to hospital,” National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) chief Satya Narayan Pradhan told reporters.
He said that while styrene is a common chemical used in the plastic industry, high exposure to it can be lethal.
HIGHLIGHTS
- LG Polymers plant is owned by South Korean battery maker LG Chemical.
- It was reopened several days ago, when India relaxed its coronavirus lockdown measures.
“When we woke up, the smell of the gas was all around. Standing outside became difficult. The gas entered our homes and caused breathing problems and burning sensation in the lungs,” said Subha Reddy, a resident of Naidu Thota, one of the affected villages.
The state minister for industry, M. Goutham Reddy, told Arab News the leakage started when workers were checking a gas storage tank. “Only a thorough investigation will reveal what exactly happened,” he said. According to initial reports, a malfunction in the temperature controls led to a sharp increase in the pressure in the gas tank and the gas escaped through the safety valve.
The plant was reopened several days ago when India relaxed its coronavirus lockdown measures, Srijana Gummalla, commissioner at the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, told journalists.
South Korean battery maker LG Chemical, the owner of the facility, said in a statement that it is “looking into the exact damages, cause of the death and details of
the incident.”
(With Reuters)
