At about 3 a.m. on May 7, 2020, styrene monomer vapour had leaked out of a storage tank on the premises of LG Polymers unit located at Venkatapuram village on the outskirts of the Port City.
The dangerous vapour, which spread over 3 km, had left 12 persons, who included two children, dead. Around 600 people were hospitalised with difficulty in breathing and vision complaints.
As per the report submitted by the High Power Committee (HPC) constituted to inquire into the incident, about 1,000 people had suffered different forms of illnesses that ranged from kidney to neurological issues and from gastrointestinal problems to issues related to vision.
The report had attributed the accident to poor design of the M6 tank, inadequate refrigeration and cooling system, absence of circulation of mixing systems, inadequate measurement parameters, poor safety protocol, poor safety awareness, inadequate risk assessment and response, poor process safety management systems, slackness of the management, insufficient knowledge among staff, insufficient knowledge of the chemical properties of styrene, especially during storage under idle conditions, and total breakdown of the emergency response procedures.
Expert opinion
After almost two years, a team of experts, comprising Dr. V. Ramana Dhara, Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad; Dr. D. Raghunadha Rao, chief of medical oncology, KIMS-ICON Hospital; Dr. G.R. Sridhar of Endocrine and Diabetes Centre; and Thomas H. Gassert, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; published a detailed paper in the Journal of Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences, highlighting the health issues and how to mitigate such disasters in the industrial cities such as Visakhapatnam.
Based on the scientific findings, the experts opined that the styrene leak not only adversely affected the health of those exposed to the leak but also resulted in significant water and soil pollution.
The report said that the least contaminated water sample from a dug-up well in the community contained styrene levels 87 times higher than the guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Similarly, the least contaminated soil sample from the Narava Kota Reservoir breached the Canadian standards for agricultural land by more than 1,000 times.
The experts opined that styrene was particularly toxic to the brain and the lungs, and that very little had been done on the follow-up treatment of those affected.
‘Samples not preserved’
Primarily, the blood endurance samples should have been collected and preserved for later analysis. This was necessary to monitor the periodic health condition of the affected people. They should have been collected, frozen and preserved over a period of time, said Dr. Ramana Dhara, who was also a scientist who studied the fallout of the Bhopal gas tragedy.
The preserved samples would have given the quantification of exposure to styrene, which was the ideal benchmark for the follow-up treatment, he observed.
But, it was not done despite the toxicology of styrene being well‑known to the occupational physicians and hygienists, he added.
What was even more surprising for the experts was that the health monitoring system had failed to live up to the desired standard.
Need of the hour
Dr. Raghunadha Rao said the need of the hour was to set up a dedicated health centre for monitoring purposes. A multi-specialty hospital and / or school of public health must be established with state‑of‑the‑art facilities for monitoring the condition of and providing specialised treatment for the victims.
“The gas-related disease categories have to be broadened, based on the information gathered by monitoring the population. In other words, there needs to be a styrene exposure risk stratification for individual victims and for an epidemiological study,” the experts opined.
Victims’ right
The health data collected by the authorities concerned should be communicated to the population and submitted for publication in professional journals, and the victims had the right of access to their medical records. Victim organisations should be adequately represented in the committees dealing with the disaster, and the criteria for compensation should include medical, economic, and social damage to the victims, they added.
The experts also suggested that allocation of resources for economic and social rehabilitation of people and their communities should be made.
“At least now, the authorities concerned should consider the suggestions made by the HPC and subject experts,” said a member of the CPI(M) State Secretariat.
