In 6 months, another case of ammonia gas leak

Nearly six months after a life was lost in the ammonia gas leak incident that had occurred in an ice factory near the Domoria overbridge, another similar incident took place this afternoon. The incident took place at Kuldeep Ice Factory in residential colony Anand Nagar here. Thankfully, there was no casualty reported today.

Residents of the locality had raised the alarm after which officials from all departments concerned, including the SDO, Punjab Pollution Control Board, Deputy Director, Factories, and the police, reached the spot. A fire tender too had been immediately pressed into service.

Manvinder S Hundal, SDO, PPCB, "We already had been getting complaints about the factory from the residents. Since the owner of the factory had been running it without our consent, we had got its power connection snapped through the PSPCL so that the factory could not be run. Today, we got a complaint that some testing work was being done in the factory again and the gas was leaking and, therefore, we called in all officials."

Gurjant Singh, Deputy Director, Factories, said, "There has been an incident due to leak from residue gas in cylinders lying in the factory. Since the day temperature has increased, there had been expansion of gas and hence the leakage. We have called in a team of experts from Verka so that the entire gas can be extracted. We are getting the equipment. A few houses in the locality will be vacated. The area will be cordoned off, all cylinders will be completely emptied and gas shall be dissolved and disposed of scientifically". The city police teams helped the officials in the process.