New Delhi - At least 26 people of the more than 100 who fell ill after a gas leak at a Tata Motors plant in eastern India remained hospitalized, officials and news reports said Wednesday. More than 100 people were admitted to hospital Tuesday after chlorine leaked from an abandoned water filtration plant at the plant in Jamshedpur in eastern Jharkhand state, PTI news agency reported.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda said the leak was caused by Tata Motors' negligence.
"I was told that an unused chlorine cylinder had been lying in the plant for the last 10 years, and the gas leaked from that cylinder," Koda was quoted as saying Wednesday after he visited patients being treated at a hospital run by Tata Motors in Jamshedpur.
"It is a clear case of negligence," Koda said.
A Tata Motors spokesman said the chlorine leak had been plugged and all those who reported breathing difficulties had been admitted to the company-run hospital.
A total of 26 people were still undergoing treatment while the rest were discharged late Tuesday, a hospital official said.
Chlorine gas is used to purify water. It can be poisonous when it reacts with water in the lungs to form hydrochloric acid, which can be lethal.
More than 15,000 people were killed in a methyl isocyanate gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal in central India in 1984 in one of India's worst industrial disasters.
