The Central Committee of the Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights (OPDR) has demanded a judicial probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the styrene gas leakage that resulted in death of 12 persons and hospitalisation of hundreds in Visakhapatnam.
OPDR central committee chairman Ch Bhaskara Rao in a press release here on Friday said steps should be taken to arrest the persons responsible for the gas leak.
He said according to a fact finding report, the fully automated plant polymerisation plant was shut down since March 24 as part of the nationwide lockdown.
But taking advantage of the recent relaxations by the central government, the management attempted to restart production with a workforce that was not sufficient and at one point the system failed and temperature inside the liquid styrene tank increased beyond the than ambient temperature triggering the highly exothermic runaway polymerization of the stored chemical resulting in large quantity of Styrene vapour, gushed out from a tank. Because Styrene vapour was heavier than air it slowly spread at ground level and every person that inhaled it fell unconscious.
