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.