There was a gas leak in the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant late on Monday night, around 11 p.m. or so, resulting in the hospitalisation of 11 employees.
According to sources, two of them are still in hospital, one in the general hospital in the steel plant and the other in a private hospital in the city, and the rest have been discharged. All are said to be out of danger.
According to union sources, the accident occurred when a boiler was lighted in the captive power plant with the gas released from the blast furnace and there was excessive pressure and release of gas.
Employees and officials in the vicinity fainted and they were taken to the general hospital in the steel plant.
Union leader D. Adinarayana said it was a gross safety lapse and the management was not taking any steps to prevent the recurrence of such incidents in spite of repeated appeal by the unions.
He appealed to the management to take all due precautions and preventive measures before commissioning any of the new units in the expansion project.
He said even after the major accident in the steel plant’s steel melt shop last year, which claimed 19 lives, “the management has not woken up to the fact that safety of the workers is of utmost importance and taken the necessary steps’’.