BENGALURU/CHENNAI—A chemical gas leak at an LG Polymers plant in southern India on Thursday killed at least six people, and led to more than 120 people being admitted to hospital and the evacuation of three nearby villages, a local official in Andra Pradesh state said.
The commissioner of the Visakhapatnam city corporation said styrene leaked from the plant during the early hours of the morning, when families in the surrounding villages were asleep.
“Hundreds of people have inhaled it and either fell unconscious or [are] having breathing issues,” Srijana Gummalla, commissioner of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), said on Twitter.
More than 120 villagers were taken to hospitals and at least three surrounding villages were being evacuated, an official in the office of the district’s top bureaucrat said.
“We expect it to take at least an hour to complete evacuation of these villages,” the official added.
In a tweet, the GVMC requested that citizens in the vicinity of the plant stay indoors. Images posted on Twitter showed emergency responders including police officers, firefighters and ambulance workers at the spot.
Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the images.
South Korean battery maker LG Chemical Ltd, the owner of the facility, was not immediately available for comment.
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