Vizag styrene gas leak: ‘little has been done on follow-up treatment of victims’

The leak not only affected the health of those exposed but also resulted in significant water and soil pollution, say experts

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.

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.