Thirteen people have died, as hundreds of others taken ill, after a gas leak in south India. The leak, in the city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh state, has been traced to the LG Polymers plant.
The leak occurred when the plant was being re-opened for the first time since 24 March when India went into lock down to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Swaroop Rani, a senior police official in Visakhapatnam, told AFP that the plant had been left idle because of the lockdown. It led to a chemical reaction and heat was produced inside the tanks, and the gas leaked because of that.”
Distressing images of people fainting and dropping unconscious on the streets are being shared on social media.
India has a tragic history of gas leaks.
In 1984, a toxic chemical leak in a pesticide plant in the central city of Bhopal killed thousands of people, in what is acknowledged to be the world’s worst industrial disaster.
