Gas leak in Gujarat: 1,200 evacuated

Manas Dasgupta

Ahmedabad, July 18

An emergency evacuation of people was undertaken in a residential area in Nadiad town of central Gujarat after at least 22 persons were taken ill due to leakage of chlorine gas from a tanker of the local civic body today.

According to the Kheda district collector Kuldeep Arya, one of the three chlorine tankers parked in a storehouse of the Nadiad municipality in Pragatinagar locality developed a leak, thereby affecting people in the area. He said 22 persons were taken ill and had to be admitted to the civil hospital with breathing trouble. "Most of them were discharged by the evening," he said.

The authorities used a public-address system to ask people to rush out in the open to escape from the ill-effects of chlorine. About 1,200 residents of about 250 houses in the locality were evacuated.

About a dozen fire tenders from Nadiad, Anand, Kheda, Kapadwanj and Ahmedabad were called to plug the leak. It took about two hours before the leakage was plugged, Arya said.

"The leaking tanker, containing around 900 kilolitre of chlorine, was eventually sealed," Arya said. Chlorine stocked by the civic body was meant for disinfecting water.