Vizag gas leak: 8 member team from South Korea to investigate

Visakhapatnam: A week after the styrene vapour leakage from LG Polymers that claimed 12 lives and hospitalised over 500 people in Vizag city, South Korea’s LG Chem said on Wednesday that it had sent a delegation to India to investigate the cause of the toxic gas leak.

The LG Chem said an eight-member delegation, led by its petrochemicals business head, will brief support measures to the affected residents (five villages under Gopalapatnam police station limits in Vizag city) and meet officials of various departments in India and Andhra Pradesh.

The LG Polymers plant is a unit of South Korea’s biggest petrochemical maker LG Chem.

The victims of the styrene gas tragedy (residents of Venkatapuram, BC Colony, SC Colony and Padmanabha Nagar) have been protesting, demanding closure of LG Polymers in Vizag, citing that the plant would pose threat to their life in the future too.

Vizag district collector V. Vinay Chand said that as per the orders of Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, the remaining stock of styrene gas at the Visakhapatnam Port and LG Polymers in Vizag is being shifted to South Korea from Vizag Port in two vessels. He also said there was no need to panic as the situation at LG Polymers was under control and that there was no chance of leakage now.

The LG Polymers will be shutdown till further orders from Andhra Pradesh government. Three committees are collecting samples and visiting the affected areas to ascertain the reasons behind the tragedy and also to assess the long-term effects in the vicinity of the plant.

On Wednesday, the victims staged a protest demanding the government to provide safe drinking water, milk and other essential commodities.