AP gas leak: Bengal govt asks Haldia chemical companies to be vigilant

Kolkata, May 7 (PTI) Following the gas leak incident in Andhra Pradesh, the West Bengal government has asked the chemical and petrochemical companies including the downstream units in Haldia to remain cautious during the ongoing lockdown, an official said on Thursday.

The local administration has urged the companies in the Haldia industrial belt of East Medinipur district to be vigilant, though they are taking precautions of their own, he said.

Haldia Petrochemicals, Mitsubishi Chemical, Dhunseri Petrochem among others have plants in the Haldia industrial zone. Gas leaked from a chemical plant in Visakhapatnam in the early hours of Thursday and quickly spread to villages in a five-kilometre radius, killing at least 11 people and impacting about 1,000, many collapsing to the ground as they tried to escape the toxic vapours.

Among the dead were two children, aged six and nine, a first-year medical student and two people who fell into a well while fleeing the vapours from the plant, getting ready to reopen after the lockdown.