Gas leak sees 400 hospitalized

Gas leak sees 400 hospitalized

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Purwakarta

Over 400 Purwakarta residents in West Java were taken to the
hospital on Tuesday after being overcome by gas, with some 20 of
them having to stay overnight at the hospital.

The people arrived at the hospital by whatever means were
available, including ambulances, private cars and public buses.

The first signs that something was amiss was when residents
starting suffering from headaches and nausea after inhaling
escaping gas coming from a pipe belonging to textile producer PT
Indorama Synthetic Tbk. Some even fell unconscious.

"I smelled a foul odor at 5 a.m, and slowly but surely my two
children and I got headaches and started feeling nauseous. I then
saw my neighbors coming out on to the street, complaining that
they too were suffering from similar symptoms," said Rokayah,
whose house is located only some 100 meters away from the leaking
pipe in Cisampih hamlet, Purwakarta, some 70 kilometers west of
Bandung city.

Rokayah and her neighbors went to the hospital straightaway
and other residents followed suit. By 6 a.m, some 100 residents
had arrived at the Bayu Asih hospital in the regency and more
came later on.

The hospital was initially at a loss what to do as it was
unable to handle the large number of patients.

"We focused on those who were unconscious and later attended
to those suffering less severe symptoms," said Sudrajat, the head
of the hospital's emergency unit. He said the gas was not lethal
although it could cause breathing problems for those who inhaled
it.

After the leak, Cisampih hamlet was deserted and only returned
to life in the afternoon after most of the residents had been
discharged from the hospital.

Adang Herman, 53, who has lived in the hamlet for years, said
he had been smelling foul odors since the factory started
operating in the 1990s. A similar escape of toxic fumes also
happened in 1999 but the number of victims was not as many as on
Tuesday, said Adang.

Since the 1999 incident, the company had been giving residents
five tins of instant milk per family each month, said Adang.

Company spokesman Harry Prasetyo said the firm accepted
responsibility for the gas leak and would cover all the medical
expenses incurred by the residents.

He said the gas was not dangerous and it would dissipate after
it mixed with the air. "Dozens of our employees are working near
the site of the leak and they're doing fine," said Harry.

He said the leak had been detected on Tuesday morning at 4:50
a.m and all related operations immediately halted. However, he
said the company still did not know the cause of the leak. "This
is something that does not happen every day. Also, it didn't
affect the main pipe. We suspect the steel pipe buckled after we
shut down operations," he said.