121 hospitalised in industrial gas leak in India: Report

At least 121 women have been hospitalised after a gas leak at an apparel manufacturing plant in India, local media reports said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday night, the workers had complained of nausea and vomiting at a plant in the Atchyutapuram district of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

No deaths have been reported and the situation was under control on Wednesday, broadcaster India Today said.

Following the incident, the Andhra Pradesh Industries Minister Gudivada Amarnath announced a decision to conduct a high-level probe into the incident, and said that the company would remain closed until the investigation into the leakage concludes. He pointed out that it was the second instance of gas leakage in the past two months, as per an ANI report. The cause of the gas leakage was yet to be ascertained, as the police and pollution control board teams continue to investigate.

The hospitalisations follow a similar accident in June when 178 women fell unconscious after a gas leak in the same area.

Amarnath said some samples were also sent to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for a more detailed examination. Earlier, Hemanth, the District Medical and Health Officer of Anakapalle, had said that most of the patients complained about difficulties in breathing, nausea, and vomiting.

In 2020, at least five people were killed and hundreds were hospitalised, after a gas leak at a chemical plant in Visakhapatnam, an industrial port city in the same state.

In 1984, India witnessed one of its worst industrial disasters in history when gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

Around 3,500 people living around the plant operated by Union Carbide died in the days that followed the leak. People continue to suffer the effects of it to this day.

Children are still born disfigured-- with webbed feet and hands-- and/or stunted, because of the gas that affected their mothers.

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