This archive report was first published on 7 May 2020.
Published on May 7, 2020, a gas leak at a chemical factory owned by the South Korean company LG Corp. in eastern India's Visakhapatnam city left hundreds of people struggling for their lives.
According to local media reports, at least 1,000 people fell ill after inhaling toxic fumes from the factory, with dozens more admitted to nearby hospitals. The police were trying to evacuate hundreds from their homes near the factory.
Doctors at the King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam said patients had been exposed to styrene gas, which is used to make plastics and rubber and can be dangerous.
The cause of the leak remains unclear, but a former employee alleged that the factory may have been restarted after the lockdown was lifted without proper maintenance work done. India was under lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus, but parts of the country were allowing more businesses to reopen at the time.
The incident drew comparison to the 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, considered the world's worst industrial accident, which left nearly 4,000 dead and another 500,000 injured.
