Around 40 employees of a bottling plant of an aerated drink in Kamalgazi, near Garia on the southern fringes of Kolkata, had to be evacuated following a gas leak on Monday afternoon. No one was taken ill, said police.
Officers in the fire and emergency services department said the leaked gas was ammonia.
The leakage at the plant, located in Kamalgazi’s Kandarpapur, on the southern fringes of the city, was detected around 4pm.
Four fire tenders were sent to the spot, followed by a team from the National Disaster Response Force. The situation was controlled by the evening, officers said.
“The gas was being transmitted from a tank to a pipe inside a compressor room of the plant. The leakage was detected in the pipe,” said an officer in the fire services department.
“Our personnel had to wear face masks. Since ammonia dissolves easily in water, the men on duty continued to spray water in the air to ensure no one fell sick.”
Bottling plant experts said water can absorb nearly 1,000 times its volume of ammonia gas, converting it into ammonium hydroxide.
Eyewitnesses told the police that they realised that there was a gas leak after a pungent smell hit them at work. Almost immediately, most of them covered their noses with pieces of cloth and alerted the police and the fire services department.
“Three ambulances were kept ready outside the main gate of the plant to rush employees to hospital, if needed. The emergency siren was switched on and the entire area was cordoned off,” said a senior officer of Narendrapur police station.
Some residents of the area — the plant is located in a densely populated locality — panicked after the siren went off. People covered their faces with masks and handkerchiefs and ran farther away from the plant.
“Firefighters armed with oxygen cylinders and masks entered the compressor room and located the point from where the gas was leaking,” the officer in the fire department said. “The firefighters were armed with gadgets that help detect the location of the leak.”
With the area in front of the entrance to the bottling plant cordoned off to facilitate rescue operations, traffic came to a halt on the main road outside the facility.
Later, after the leak was plugged, senior police officers ensured that all vehicles moved through a single lane.
