Firefighters prepare equipment in case of a fire after ammonia gas (NH3) leaked at the Vĩnh Lộc gas filling station in HCM City’s Bình Chánh District. — Photo tuoitre.vn |
HCM CITY — At least four people have been hospitalised and thousands evacuated after ammonia gas (NH3) was found to be leaking at the Vĩnh Lộc gas filling station in HCM City’s Bình Chánh District, HCM City.
Initial investigation results revealed that the accident was mostly the result of carelessness by the gas tanker’s driver, who did not strictly follow safety rules while extracting NH3 from the tanker into the system of the station on Tuesday, leading to the gas pipes springing a leak, the Bình Chánh District’s authority was quoted as saying to Tuổi trẻ (Youth) newspaper.
The four people who collapsed after inhaling NH3 gas were two local women, a worker at the station and the tanker driver. Following emergency medical care at the Bình Chánh Hospital, all the injured were in stable condition.
The local authority immediately sent a team from the Fire Prevention and Fighting Bureau to the accident site to help evacuate more than 1,200 people from some 200 households around the filling station.
At the same time, some 1,000 students and teachers of An Phú Tây Primary School 2 were also moved out of the affected areas.
The accident site was declared safe by Wednesday, the local authority reported. — VNS