Durgapur, July 15: Twenty-six workers and two technicians took ill after inhaling blast furnace gas during maintenance work at Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) this morning, a day after over 100 people fell sick following a chlorine gas leak in a Mumbai Port Trust godown compound.

The workers, who came in contact with the gas at a blast furnace at the SAIL-owned plant in Durgapur, started vomiting and complained of breathing problems and dizziness.

“We immediately took them to the medical unit inside the DSP where doctors gave them first aid. Later they were shifted to DSP Main Hospital,” a plant official said.

Four of the workers have been kept in the intensive coronary care unit after they complained of acute breathing problems.

The technicians — A.K. Dey and Debabrata Kusti — are permanent employees of the DSP, while the 26 are workers, including five women, are engaged by contractors.

“All of them are out of danger and have been released,” said B.R. Kanungo, the chief of communications at the DSP.

“The leak was detected and rectified immediately. Plant operations are continuing,” a DSP official said.

Leaders of both the Citu and Intuc-controlled unions at the DSP, however, accused the authorities of negligence.

“It is clear that the gas leak occured because of negligence on the part of the DSP authorities. Two days ago, there was another leak at the same blast furnace but it was not repaired properly,” said Subir Sengupta, the general secretary of the Citu-led contractor workers’ union at the DSP.

Debashis Chowdhury, the assistant secretary of the Intuc-led union, echoed Sengupta. “Today’s incident occured because of negligence on the part of the DSP authorities. If the repairs are not carried out properly, we will not allow maintenance work at the blast furnace,” Chowdhury said.

A committee, headed by a general manager of the plant, has been constituted to investigate the leak. It will submit its report within three days.

A DSP official said the leak occured around 11.15am when workers were cleaning the pipe of one of the blast furnaces through which the gas is transported. The gas is required to ignite blast furnaces.

“The gas contains very little oxygen, about 20 per cent carbon monoxide, 20 per cent carbon and close to 60 per cent nitrogen. Inhaling it will lead to breathing problems, vomiting and dizziness,” a DSP official said.

More than 100 people were hospitalised in Mumbai yesterday following the chlorine gas leak from cylinders lying unattended at the Mumbai Port Trust godown for 13 years.

The chlorine leak came a little over a month after seven senior Union Carbide officials were convicted only for negligence for the Bhopal gas leak of 1984.

On May 25, 2004, at least 50 workers of Durgapur Chemicals Limited had fallen ill following a chlorine leak from a coke oven at the factory. Thirty-seven workers had to be hospitalised.