A gas leak at Sainor Life Sciences Pvt Ltd, Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City, Parawada, Visakhapatnam has claimed two lives and injured four people.

According to police, benzene gas leaked on Monday night  and came to light only in the wee hours of Tuesday.

The leak occurred when benzene gas was being pumped into the reactor. About 30 employees were working in the plant at the time of the mishap. On inhaling the gas, around six persons collapsed and were rushed to hospital.

The deceased persons were senior employees and functioned as the shift in-charge and the chemist. They were the first to fall victim and it took a while before the other workers found them gasping for breath. They died on the way to the hospital.

Those who fell sick after inhaling the gas have been admitted to a hospital in Gajuwaka, with one of them being put on ventilator support. V Vinay Chand, District Collect, Visakhapatnam, said that the pharma unit has been temporarily shut down as a precautionary measure. “There is no need for any panic and the leak was confined to only one unit,” he told newspersons.

The government has constituted an investigating team under the Joint Collector to investigate the cause of the mishap. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy enquired about the incident with Vinay Chand, according to a release from the the Chief Minister’s Office.

The company manufacturers Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) with compliance to USFDA and other global norms. Police forced the plant to be immediately shutdown as a precautionary measure.

The mishap has occured about two months since the  styrene gas leak in LG Polymers Pvt Ltd in Vizag which claimed 12 lives and injured many in the port town.

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