Dozens of men and women were left lying unconscious in the street. Police officers moved house to house to evacuate people from the area around the plant, located near the coastal city of Visakhapatnam. Our eyes started watering and we could smell the gas in our mouths,” said one man, DVSS Ramana, who lives near the plant and spoke by telephone as he was fleeing. India has been under a strict coronavirus lockdown for the past six weeks, and Indian officials were examining whether the leak was caused by a rush to reopen the chemical plant. “It seems unskilled labor mishandled the maintenance work and because of that, the gas leaked,” said Srijana Gummalla, Commissioner of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation.

Source: New York Times May 07, 2020 04:01 UTC