Hundreds of residents in and around Gopalapatnam fled their homes in the middle of the night after rumours spread that the LG Polymers plant would explode as there was another deadly leak at the unit.
The rumours spread thick and fast, with many people in surrounding areas too spending sleepless nights worried that the styrene vapours would spread to their locality.
Residents of Gopalapatnam, Pendurthi, Naidu Thota, Simhachalam and other localities in the area packed their bags and left home after social media was flooded by messages warning about a second gas leak. Several rumours were also abuzz that the police were evacuating people residing in a five-km radius from the plant.
Shortly after 1 a.m, residents of Madhavadhara, Murali Nagar, NGGOs Colony and Marripalem too began evacuating their homes, complaining of a pungent smell.
“We started to smell a pungent gas from 1.30 a.m. We just wanted to be sure that our children are safe, so we left our home and went to Seethammadhara,” said N. Anand, a resident of Murali Nagar.
While those who had relatives in other parts of their city went over to their homes, others who had nowhere else to go spent the night inside their cars or sitting on the pavement along the Adavivaram-Mudasarlova route. Many people rested along the Beach Road between NTR Statue and Park Hotel junction.
Pleas go in vain
All the commotion took place despite top officials like GVMC Commissioner G. Srijana, DCP Uday Bhaskar and MLC P.V.N. Madhav responding to calls after 1 a.m., urging people to stay at home and reiterating that the rumours were baseless.
“On Thursday midnight, rumours spread that the police are reportedly asking residents within a 5 km radius of the LG Polymers to evacuate due to another gas leak. The incident took place when we were evacuating people from within one to two km radius as a precautionary measure, since some amount of styrene vapour was still present in the area,” said a senior police officer from the city, adding that action would be taken against those who spread the rumours.
Police started to deploy patrolling vehicles from 2.30 a.m. making announcements that there is nothing to worry and not to believe in rumours. However most of the people started to return homes by the morning as police teams urged them to go back to their homes.
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