On Thursday, at least 11 people were killed and over 300 were hospitalised after styrene gas leaked at a plant run by LG Polymers in Visakh...
On Thursday, at least 11 people were killed and over 300 were hospitalised after styrene gas leaked at a plant run by LG Polymers in Visakhapatnam.
Details about the plant that have emerged since the incident paints a disturbing picture of regulatory failure. According to the Indian Express, LG’s petrochemical plant did not have environmental clearances for its operations between 1997 and 2019.
The company acknowledged that it had expanded “beyond the limit of environmental clearance or changed the product mix without obtaining prior environmental clearance as mandated under the Environment Impact Assessment notification, 2006”.
The unit had been shut due to the Covid-19 nationwide lockdown. It was preparing to reopen on Thursday and had obtained passes for its staff for maintenance work during the interim. Across the country in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district, seven workers fell sick after inhaling a toxic gas at a paper mill on Thursday. Here, too, cleaning operations were underway to reopen the plant after the lockdown, an unidentified official told PTI. The same day, a factory in Nashik in Maharashtra and a power plant in Tamil Nadu’s Neyveli witnessed accidents, leaving several injured.
These incidents present serious warnings for India as it tries to emerge out of the nationwide lockdown and restart production in manufacturing...
