Bihar: Ammonia gas leak in factory kills one in Vaishali, several hospitalised

Vaishali (Bihar) [India], June 25 (ANI): One died and several others were hospitalised in an ammonia gas leak incident in a dairy factory on Saturday in Bihar’s Vaishali.

The gas leak happened between 10-10.30 pm on Saturday when the workers of the factory were inside the building involved in daily practice. As soon as the gas leakage was noticed, all of them ran outside the building to save themselves. In the panic situation that was created, one of the workers fell down in the rush and lost his life, the manager of the factory, Rajiv Kumar told ANI.
“This gas leak incident occurred at around 10.05 pm yesterday. One worker has died while trying to evacuate from the dairy. 7-8 workers came in the gas exposure but all recovered soon. The situation in the plant is under control and we are trying to revive it,” says Rajiv Kumar, Manager of Raj Fresh Dairy, Hajipur.

“Because of the leakage, the workers that were at work started evacuating to save themselves. But the situation is under control now and the broken pipe has also been repaired,” the manager added.

“We got information that there was an incident of gas leakage from an ammonium cylinder in Raj Fresh Dairy. Several fire tenders have reached the spot to control the situation. As of now, we have information that some labours have been admitted to a hospital. We are investigating the cause of the leakage. The situation is under control now,” Dr Ashok Kumar, DSP, Fire Department said while speaking to ANI.

The affected labourers have been admitted to the hospital and are undergoing treatment. All of them are out of danger but are kept under medical observation.

“It happened at around 10.30 last night. We were doing our daily work and suddenly saw smoke. All of us started running outside to save ourselves from the suffocation. But in the meantime, we had inhaled some of the poisonous gas. All of us started feeling dizzy but now most of us are feeling better,” said Shankar Kumar, one of the hospitalised labourers.

“The Ammonia pipe had leaked, after which panic was created. The pipe was repaired and controlled on time but still, it caused a lot of damage within minutes. I’m feeling much better now,” said Krishna, another worker at the factory.