Vizag gas leak: High Power Committee submits report to Andhra CM
Jul 06, 2020
Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh) [India], July 6 : The High Power Committee formed to probe the Vizag gas leak incident submitted a 4,000-page report to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The Committee, in its report, said that the "accident occurred due to uncontrolled Styrene vapour release from the M6 tank, that qualifies as a major accident as per the definition under MSIHC rules"
"The temperature in the tank rose substantially. The rise in the temperature caused the styrene liquid to eventually vaporize and increase the pressure; it was a tank with small vents," it further said.
The committee said that the root cause of the accident were poor design of the tank, inadequate refrigeration and faulty cooling system, absence of circulation and mixing systems, poor safety protocol.
It also blamed slackness of management, insufficient knowledge among staff, lack of knowledge of chemical properties of styrene, especially when kept in storage, total breakdown of the emergency response of the procedures, among others.
The safety protocol was not followed by the authorities during the lockdown period, according to the report.
The committee also observed that the factory has absolutely no stocks of inhibitors and negligible stocks of terminators which could have been used to minimise the impact of the accident if not neutralise it.
Apart from the above, the committee has also observed that the alarm system was not used despite there being a total of 36 activation points, including one at the factory gate.
CM Reddy has accepted the report and ordered for it to be put into the public domain and has also asked the respective authorities to take action against those responsible under relevant sections of the law.
The committee had also invited citizens to pose questions and had answered most of them except those which only could be answered in the long run and depends on variables.
Styrene gas, which leaked from the gas plant of LG Polymers in RR Venkatapuram village in Visakhapatnam district on May 7, had claimed over 10 lives and had left several people ill.
